Design and test results of scientific X-ray CMOS cameras

TL;DR

This paper presents the design, development, and testing of two scientific CMOS-based X-ray cameras, demonstrating their performance for X-ray spectroscopy and potential applications in space and laboratory settings.

Contribution

The paper introduces two new sCMOS-based X-ray cameras with high energy resolution and real-time event extraction capabilities, suitable for scientific and space applications.

Findings

Energy resolution below 200 eV at 5.9 keV

Frame rates of 48 fps and 20 fps (boostable to 100 fps)

Operating temperatures down to -20C and -30C

Abstract

In recent years, scientific CMOS (sCMOS) sensors have found increasing applications to X-ray detection, including X-ray astronomical observations. In order to examine the performance of sCMOS sensors, we have developed X-ray cameras based on sCMOS sensors. Two cameras, CNX22 and CNX 66, have been developed using sCMOS sensors with a photosensitive area of 2 cm * 2 cm and 6 cm * 6 cm, respectively. The designs of the cameras are presented in this paper. The CNX22 camera has a frame rate of 48 fps, whereas CNX66 has a frame rate of currently 20 fps, that can be boosted to 100 fps in the future. The operating temperature of the sCMOS sensor can reach to -20C for CNX22 and -30C for CNX66 with a peltier cooler device. In addition to the commonly used mode of saving original images, the cameras provide a mode of real-time extraction of X-ray events and storage their information, which significantly reduces the requirement for data storage and offline analysis work. For both cameras, the energy resolutions can reach less than 200 eV at 5.9 keV using single-pixel events. These cameras are suitable for X-ray spectroscopy applications in laboratories and calibration for the space X-ray telescopes.