Custom Solutions and Standard Products

XCAM has developed and built many challenging custom systems for science over the years; this has given us the opportunity to develop a series of standard components which can be used to enable the customer to build a custom system from a series of standard elements, or we can use our accumulated know-how and expertise to develop a custom system specifically for your application.

Our specific expertise is in:

• Chip selection and relationships with detector manufacturers
• Electronics design
• Camera system integration
• CCDs in camera heads customised to suit your space envelope, vacuum interface or other specific requirements
• Optimisation of performance
• Novel readout/sampling strategies
• Large area and multiple CCD focal plane arrays
• Systems with custom CCDs, large area CCDs, scintillator-coupled CCDs
• Detector test and characterisation work, including QE calibration to national standards
• Detector consultancy

We have built cameras primarily using e2v technologies CCDs, but have also used Atmel (formerly Thompson and now part of e2v technologies) and Kodak CCDs. We are happy to offer systems constructed around any manufacturer’s CCDs.

Some examples of custom XCAM CCD camera systems and their applications are presented below, along with some information about other custom headboards and CCD packaging designs we have produced. For additional information, please contact us for a detailed discussion of your requirements.

Large Camera for DESY FLASH XFEL Studies

Custom CCD for X-ray Free Electron Laser Experiment

Large Area and Multiple CCD Systems XCAM specialises in producing camera heads with large area CCDs such as e2v technologies 42-90 chip.

SCD Detectors XCAM has produced cameras based on e2v technologies new range of SCDs (swept charge devices) for X-ray spectroscopy.

X-ray Spectroscopy and Multi-spectral Imaging Using the CCDs ability to provide energy resolution of individual photon events provides spectral information at the same time as spatial information is acquired.

Ultra-fast, Multiple-windowed Spectroscopy XCAM has developed a camera system for high frame rate multi-fibre optical spectroscopy. In this system, up to 16 user-selectable windows are defined on the CCD image and sampled, providing up to 3200 spectra per second.

Example of a Masked CCD Operating in an Unusual Mode The CCD is required to detect a tiny amount of exponentially-decaying light, and to operate in a mode which permits the decay constant to be determined. The resulting spectrum temporal resolution is around 2 microseconds.

CCDs with Scintillators for X-ray Studies A CCD with a scintillating fibre-optic stud attached for hard X-ray detection.

Custom Headboards and CCD Packaging We can provide operating CCDs in configurations permitting operation in most space envelopes and environments.

Cryogenically Cooled Systems We can provide CCD camera systems for operation at cryogenic temperatures.