Research On Testing Method Of EMCCD Imaging Performance Parameters

As a new type of solid state imaging device, EMCCD has the advantages of small volume, long service life and high photoelectric conversion efficiency. It improves the performance of low-light-level imaging devices, and can even detect single photon, which shows great potential in the field of imaging. However, compared with the normal CCD, the low-light-level images acquired by EMCCD perform lower contrast, smaller dynamic range, as well as interference associated with various noises, which decreases the signal-to-noise ratio and the resolution. On one hand, product manuals provided by EMCCD camera manufacturers give only the performance parameters for television broadcast industry standard, lacking those for scientific imaging. On the other hand, the design and manufacture of EMCCD also need to regularly test the performance of parameters. Therefore, it is of great significance to accurately test the EMCCD performance parameters.Based on the working principle of EMCCD, its performance parameters are discussed in detail. We also simulated the working environment of EMCCD, designed and then built an EMCCD test system of performance parameters. According to the test system, some methods to test EMCCD performance parameters are designed and the parameters of EMCCD performance and noise are acquired separately, including readout noise, dark current, noise factor, clock induced charge, non-uniformity, full well capacity and dynamic range. The test results almost agree with the product manual. In addition, some uncertainty analysis was carried out based on the theory of uncertainty. The results are around two percents, indicating that the device works in good condition, the test scheme is feasible and the test system we built basically meets the design requirement in this paper. The test results in this paper have a guiding significance for the design and practical application of EMCCD.