sCMOS Camera for Indirect X-Ray and Transmission Electron Microscopy

Photonic Science offers a new series of scientific CMOS (sCMOS) cameras that come with various resolutions of 1280 x 1024, 1920 x 1080, 2048 x 2048, and 4096 x 4096 pixels suited for high-end needs of scientific and industrial end-users.

Applications include microscopy, indirect X-ray imaging, low light fluorescence imaging, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

The choice of high responsivity sCMOS sensors with intrinsic noise floor down to Single Electron allows ideal photonic collection with the best possible signal-to-noise ratio.

The camera is based on the second-generation sensor and provides very high Quantum Efficiency and a genuine 16-bit dynamic range with full well capacity that is more than 30,000 electrons.

With auto exposure control and on-chip corrections, the camera can deliver 30 frames per second using a Gigabit Ethernet interface,allowing very fast acquisition. Photonic Science also provides a camera link version that can deliver 100 frames per second.

TEC Cooling down to –30 °C makes it possible to acquire highly stable images. Genicam compliance easily incorporates the camera with industrial GigE standard SDKs. The full range of cameras enables flexibility with respect to features as well as price requirements on different market areas/applications. OEM versions are also available that can be readily combined into high-end equipment.

sCMOS sensors offer lower readout noise when compared to conventional CCDs realized through the use of column-parallel amplifiers. This allows correlated double sampling and A-to-D conversion at kHz instead of MHz frequencies, even at the video frame rate.

sCMOS sensors have a readout noise of 1 to 2 electrons RMS when compared to the typical 6 electrons RMS for conventional CCDs. They offer concurrent high and low gain outputs. Incorporating these outputs into the camera electronics offers a “best of both worlds” camera image with a high 16-bit intrascene dynamic range and very low noise.

Very low noise results in an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio for images where there are just a few photons per pixel per frame. Resolutions of HD 1920 x 1080 to 4k x 4k are also provided.