We present the development of a Skipper Charge-Coupled Device (CCD) focal plane prototype for the SOAR Telescope Integral Field Spectrograph (SIFS). This mosaic focal plane consists of four 6k × 1k, 15 μm pixel Skipper CCDs mounted inside a vacuum dewar. We describe the process of packaging the CCDs so that they can be easily tested, transported, and installed in a mosaic focal plane. We characterize the performance of ∼650μm thick, fully-depleted engineering-grade Skipper CCDs in preparation for performing similar characterization tests on science-grade Skipper CCDs which will be thinned to 250μm and backside processed with an antireflective coating. We achieve a single-sample readout noise of 4.5e−rms/pix for the best performing amplifiers and sub-electron resolution (photon counting capabilities) with readout noise σ∼0.16e−rms/pix from 800 measurements of the charge in each pixel. We describe the design and construction of the Skipper CCD focal plane and provide details about the synchronized readout electronics system that will be implemented to simultaneously read 16 amplifiers from the four Skipper CCDs (4-amplifiers per detector). Finally, we outline future plans for laboratory testing, installation, commissioning, and science verification of our Skipper CCD focal plane.
@article{arxiv.2210.03665,
title = {Design of a Skipper CCD Focal Plane for the SOAR Integral Field Spectrograph},
author = {Edgar Marrufo Villalpando and Alex Drlica-Wagner and Marco Bonati and Abhishek Bakshi and Vanessa Bawden de Paula Macanhan and Braulio Cancino and Gregory E. Derylo and Juan Estrada and Guillermo Fernandez Moroni and Luciano Fraga and Stephen Holland and Michelle J. Jonas and Agustín Lapi and Peter Moore and Andrés A. Plazas Malagón and Leandro Stefanazzi and Javier Tiffenberg},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.03665},
year = {2022}
}