Development of a high-speed 100 fps CCD camera

摘要

This paper describes the development of a high-speed CCD digital camera system. The system has been designed to use CCDs from various manufacturers with minimal modifications. The first camera built on this design utilizes a Thomson 512x512 pixel CCD as its sensor which is read out from two parallel outputs at a speed of 15 MHz/pixel/output. The data undergoes correlated double sampling after which, they are digitized into 12 bits. The throughput of the system translates into 60 MB/second which is either stored directly in a PC or transferred to a custom designed VXI module. The PC data acquisition version of the camera can collect sustained data in real time that is limited to the memory installed in the PC. The VXI version of the camera, also controlled by a PC, stores 512 MB of real-time data before it must be read out to the PC disk storage. The uncooled CCD can be used either with lenses for visible light imaging or with a phosphor screen for x-ray imaging. This camera has been tested with a phosphor screen coupled to a fiber-optic face plate for high-resolution, high-speed x-ray imaging. The camera is controlled through a custom event-driven user-friendly Windows package. The pixel clock speed can be changed from I MHz to 15 MHz. The noise was measure to be 1.05 bits at a 13.3 MHz pixel clock. This paper will describe the electronics, software, and characterizations that have been performed using both visible and x-ray photons.