Large field of view CCD imaging system

摘要

A CCD imaging system is provided, including a short focal length lens for accepting light from the scene to be imaged and a charge storage medium having a charge storage substrate that is curved in a selected nonplanar focal surface profile and located a selected distance from the lens with the focal surface facing the lens, the focal surface profile and the lens-to-substrate distance selected such that the light accepted by the lens is in focus at the position of the substrate. There is provided a support substrate on which the nonplanar charge storage substrate is supported to maintain the selected surface profile of the charge storage substrate. An array of pixels defined in the charge storage substrate by pixel interconnections is supported on the front side of the substrate, such that exposure of the substrate to light from the scene through the lens produces charge packets in the pixels, with the pixel interconnection providing selective electronic temporal control of transfer of charge packets from one pixel to another in the substrate. The invention provides a technique for suppressing dark current charge packet generation in the substrate pixels. An output circuit converts the charge packets in the pixels to an electrical pixel signal of output pixel values based on the light from the scene. A plurality of pixel values together form an image frame, the output pixel values being produced at a rate corresponding to the image frame rate, R.