Noise measurements on the floating diffusion input for charge-coupled devices

Abstract

A technique is presented for electrically introducing charge into a charge-coupled device (CCD) in a stable uniform low-noise manner. The technique utilizes a floating diffusion whose capacitance (Cfd) can be tailored for particular applications or monitored directly for noise measurements. Experimental results are presented which demonstrate that charge can be introduced into a CCD with a variance of kTCfd. This technique is particularly germaine to the introduction of a ``fat zero'' into a low-light-level surface channel CCD imager.