High-speed, low-noise, multi-megapixel CCDs for next generation X-ray observatories
Abstract
Next generation X-ray observatories require fast, low-noise, low-power, multi-megapixel imaging spectrometers. To meet these demands, the X-ray Astronomy and Observational Cosmology (XOC) Group at Stanford, in partnership with the MIT Kavli Institute and MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MIT-LL), is developing multi-channel X-ray charge-coupled devices (CCDs) and fast readout architectures. We report the energy resolution and noise performance achieved with a full-scale (1440x1440-pixel), 16-channel, front-illuminated MIT-LL CCD detector developed for the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite (AXIS) concept, the CCID-100, read out using two Multi-Channel Readout Chip (MCRC) V1 application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips in the new Stanford CCID-100 test setup. We describe an automated method for bias optimization on each CCD channel, and integrated debugging features of the front-end ASIC and readout system. The demonstrated performance confirms that these systems can meet the speed and noise requirements of future strategic X-ray missions.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2607.27047,
title = {High-speed, low-noise, multi-megapixel CCDs for next generation X-ray observatories},
author = {Haley R. Stueber and Tanmoy Chattopadhyay and Peter Orel and Steven W. Allen and Marshall W. Bautz and Michael Cooper and Kevan Donlon and Catherine E. Grant and Sven Herrmann and Jill Juneau and Beverly J. LaMarr and Christopher Leitz and Eric D. Miller and R. Glenn Morris and Declan O'Neill and Abigail Y. Pan and Tonya L. Peshel and Artem Poliszczuk and Gregory Y. Prigozhin and Keith Warner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.27047},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
To appear in SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2026 proceedings. 12 pages, 11 figures