Andor Launches New Low Dark-Current Deep-Depletion CCD (LDC-DD) Technology

Andor Technology plc (Andor), a world leader in spectroscopy solutions and scientific imaging, today announced the launch of its new back-illuminated, deep-depletion CCD technology on the industry-standard iDus platform. This new technology offers an unsurpassed combination of sensitivity in the near-infrared (NIR) and resolution, opening new possibilities for faster, higher resolution Raman, photoluminescence, plasmonics or broadband absorption without the inconvenient need for Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) use.

Andor’s iDus 416 Low Dark-Current, Deep-Depletion (LDC-DD) technology offers superb dark current performance – over 10 times better than existing deep depletion technologies; and up to 95% quantum efficiency, making it the most sensitive NIR CCD on the market. Thermo-Electric cooling to -95oC ensures that the best signal-to-noise can always be achieved (it is not only dark current that maters for NIR CCD detectors). Andor’s UltravacTM vacuum technology’s superb track record ensures that the best performance can be extracted from the CCD sensor year-after-year.

The iDus 416 also boasts a unique combination of 15 μm pixel for high resolution spectroscopy, and a 30 mm wide sensor for superior simultaneous spectral bandpass collection. The fringe-suppression process, ensuring very low optical etaloning, also comes as standard. Its plug-and-play USB2.0 connectivity offers convenient and rapid set up, as well as transportability when connecting to laptops and running in parallel with Andor’s Shamrock spectrograph series.

Antoine Varagnat, Product Specialist for Spectroscopy at Andor, commented that: “This new exciting CCD technology offers fantastic perspectives for faster optical diagnostic in the field of bio-sample chemical mapping and material analysis, but also the growing field of in situ and non-invasive medical diagnosis such as early cancer detection or blood monitoring. The iDus’ compact and robust design is also the ideal detector for challenging industrial environment in the process control industry, with the opportunity to increase food, liquids or petrochemical samples screening rates.”