Hamamatsu Photonics introduce a new design
of back-thinned linear CCD image sensor. The S11155-2048 and S11156-2048
utilize a resistive gate structure, with “on chip” electronic shutter function,
offering high speed readout with low image lag. With their back-thinned
structure these CCDs offer a high sensitivity (>80 % quantum efficiency)
from the UV to the NIR region of the spectrum.
The new, resistive gate structure allows
for very high-speed signal transfer by using a single high-resistance electrode
formed in the active area. A signal charge is transferred by means of a
potential slope, created by applying different voltages across the electrode.
Compared to a conventional CCD area image sensor, which can be used as a linear
image sensor via line binning, a one dimensional CCD with a resistive gate
structure offers greater signal transfer speed, and significantly reduced image
lag (less than 0.1%), even if the pixel height is large.
The S11155-2048 has 2048 pixels, each 14µm by
500µm pixel height, whilst the S11156-2048 also with 2048 elements, offers a larger
1000µm pixel height. The resistive gate structure allows both sensors to
operate with a high readout speed of 10 MHz.
These new image sensors are ideally suited
for spectrophotometers requiring a long sensor, with short integration time or
fast readout, and for various industrial inspection applications requiring high
speed image acquisition.