Electron multiplying CCD

C.G. Coates, D.J. Denvir, N.G. McHale, K.G. Thombury, M.A. Hollywood, Ultrasensitivity, speed and resolution optimizing low-light microscopy with the back-illuminated electron-multiplying CCD, in Cofocal Multiphoton, and Nonlinear Microscopic Imaging (T. Wilson, ed.), Proc. SPIE, Vol 5139, Bellingham, USA, 2003, pp. 56-66. 

Figure 4. Fluorescence images of dual-labeled single molecules by total internal reflection fluorescence excitation. The fluorescence emission is spectrally separated and imaged onto an electron-multiplying CCD camera resulting in two separate images.

The ideal high-throughput analytical technique would be efficient in terms of required resources and would be scalable to accommodate an arbitrarily large number of samples. In addition, this scalability would be such that the dependence of the cost of the equipment to perform the experiments would scale in a less than linear manner as a function of the number of samples that could be studied. The only way to accomplish this is to have one or more aspects of the experimental setup utilize an array-based approach. Array detectors are massively multiplexed versions of single-element detectors composed of a rectangular grid of small detectors. The most commonly encountered examples are CCD cameras, which are used to acquire ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared (IR) photons in a parallel manner. Other examples include IR focal plane arrays (FPAs) for the collection of IR photons and channel electron multipliers for the collection of electrons. 

J. Hynecek, T. Nishiwaki, Excess Noise and Other Important Characteristics of Low Light Level Imaging Using Charge Multiplying CCDs, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices 50(1), 239-245 (2003)... 

Multichannel electron detectors of various types can be placed to cover the exit plane of the analyzer. CCDs (discussed in Chapter 7), phosphor-coated screens and position-sensitive detectors are some of the multichannel devices in use. One type of position-sensitive detector consists of a microchannel plate (MCP) electron multiplier. The MCP [Fig. 14.7(b)] consists of a large number of very thin conductive glass capillaries, each... 

Figure 3.1 schematically represents time-resolved experimental setup used in our experiments. The excitation sources were pulsed lasers, such as excimer XeCl (308 nm), nitrogen (337 run), three harmonics of Nd-YAG (266, 355 and 532 nm), and tunable dye and OPO, which deliver pulses of 10 ns duration. The spectra observed at the geometry of 90° are analyzed by intensified CCD matrix. Image intensifiers comprise three main components a photocathode, microchannel plate (MCP) and phosphor screen. The standard operation of these devices starts when the incident photons become converted into electrons at the photocathode. The electrons then accelerated towards the MCP where they are multiplied to an amount... 

Finally, Table 5.7 presents STO-3G and valence split 4-3IG basis correlation calculation results for the four nucleotide bases. The results to be expected in the case of the 4-3 IG basis were estimated by multiplying the corresponding numbers by factors E IE obtained for cytosine in the different methods. If one uses the valence split 4-3 IG basis or estimates the results, it is seen that the correlation eneigy per valence electron provides about 50% of the valence shell correlation using the CCD method with LOs. (One usually estimates the total correlation energy as 1 eV/electron, although this value may actually be too high in the case of valence electrons.)... 

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