Noise measurements on the floating diffusion input for chargehyphen;coupled devices

摘要

A technique is presented for electrically introducing charge into a chargehyphen;coupled device (CCD) in a stable uniform lowhyphen;noise manner. The technique utilizes a floating diffusion whose capacitance (Cfd) can be tailored for particular applications or monitored directly for noise measurements. Experimental results are presented which demonstrate that charge can be introduced into a CCD with a variance ofkTCfd. This technique is particularly germaine to the introduction of a ``fat zero'' into a lowhyphen;lighthyphen;level surface channel CCD imager.