Andor Technology Launches ‘Extended Range’ CCD Technology on iKon-L - Exceptional QE from UV to NIR

Andor Technology (Andor), an Oxford Instruments company and world leader in scientific imaging and spectroscopy solutions, today announced the launch of its ‘Extended Range, Dual-AR technology’ on the market leading iKon-L CCD platform. This offers extremely broad and high QE coverage, from Ultra Violet through to Near Infrared, in one camera.

Available on the 4 megapixel iKon-L 936 CCD platform, the Extended Range Dual-AR technology facilitates broadening of the QE range of back-illuminated, deep-depletion sensors through implementation of a new dual anti-reflection coating process on enhanced silicon, developed and characterized by sensor manufacturer e2v. This advancement builds upon the natural NIR superiority of deep depletion sensors and extends sensitivity well into the Visible and UV regions, with ~90% or greater QE in the 400-850 nm range. Fringe Suppression Technology^TM ensures that etaloning is radically minimized in the near-infrared region.

The iKon-L also uniquely cools the large area 4 megapixel sensor to an unprecedented -100 ⁰C using thermoelectric vacuum cooling, avoiding the aggravation of liquid nitrogen or ‘cryo’ compressed gas cooling. Exceptionally low read noise and superb linearity over the full dynamic range expand the application usages of the camera.

Dr Colin Coates, Product Manager at Andor Technology, commented, “The outstanding extended QE performance of the dual-AR deep depletion CCD, combined with the negligible etaloning, constitutes a very attractive solution for long exposure broadband applications, such as exoplanet discovery, large sky surveys and weak luminescence detection. Astronomers in particular appreciate the extended near infra-red capability, coupled with the remarkable longevity and performance associated with Andor’s deep cooled vacuum technology.”