TheInfoList

A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an
integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuit 200px, A circuit built on a printed circuit board (PCB). An electronic circuit is composed of indiv ...

containing an array of linked, or coupled,
capacitor A capacitor is a device that stores electric charge in an electric field. It is a passivity (engineering), passive electronic component with two terminal (electronics), terminals. The effect of a capacitor is known as capacitance. While som ...

s. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its
electric charge Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field. Electric charge can be ''positive'' or ''negative'' (commonly carried by protons and electrons respectively). Like c ...
to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a major technology used in
digital imaging Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imply or include the proce ...
. In a CCD
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a that detects and conveys information used to make an . It does so by converting the variable of light s (as they or objects) into , small bursts of that convey the information. The waves can be light or other ...
,
pixel In digital imaging Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imp ...

s are represented by p-doped
metal–oxide–semiconductor The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET), also known as the metal–oxide–silicon transistor (MOS transistor, or MOS), is a type of insulated-gate field-effect transistor The field-effect tran ...
(MOS)
capacitors A capacitor is a device that stores electric charge in an electric field An electric field (sometimes E-field) is the physical field that surrounds each electric charge Electric charge is the physical property of matter that causes it t ...
. These
MOS capacitor The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET), also known as the metal–oxide–silicon transistor (MOS transistor, or MOS), is a type of insulated-gate field-effect transistor The field-effect trans ...
s, the basic building blocks of a CCD, are biased above the threshold for inversion when image acquisition begins, allowing the conversion of incoming
photon The photon ( el, φῶς, phōs, light) is a type of elementary particle In , an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a that is not composed of other particles. Particles currently thought to be elementary include the fundamental s ...

s into electron charges at the semiconductor-oxide interface; the CCD is then used to read out these charges. Although CCDs are not the only technology to allow for light detection, CCD image sensors are widely used in professional, medical, and scientific applications where high-quality image data are required. In applications with less exacting quality demands, such as consumer and professional
digital camera A digital camera is a camera A camera is an optical Optics is the branch of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its Motion (physics), motion and behav ...

s,
active pixel sensorAn active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor where each pixel sensor unit cell has a photodetector (typically a pinned photodiode) and one or more active transistors. In a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) active-pixel sensor, MOSFET, MOS field- ...
s, also known as
CMOS sensorAn active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they refraction, pass through or ...
s (complementary MOS sensors), are generally used. However, the large quality advantage CCDs enjoyed early on has narrowed over time and since the late 2010s CMOS sensors are the dominant technology, having largely if not completely replaced CCD image sensors.

# History

The basis for the CCD is the
metal–oxide–semiconductor The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET), also known as the metal–oxide–silicon transistor (MOS transistor, or MOS), is a type of insulated-gate field-effect transistor The field-effect tran ...
(MOS) structure, with
MOS capacitor The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET), also known as the metal–oxide–silicon transistor (MOS transistor, or MOS), is a type of insulated-gate field-effect transistor The field-effect trans ...
s being the basic building blocks of a CCD, and a depleted MOS structure used as the
photodetector Photodetectors, also called photosensors, are sensors A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing of a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsyste ...
in early CCD devices. In the late 1960s,
Willard Boyle Willard Sterling Boyle, (August 19, 1924May 7, 2011) was a Canadian physicist. He was a pioneer in the field of laser technology and co-inventor of the charge-coupled device. As director of Space Science and Exploratory Studies at Bellcomm he ...
and at Bell Labs were researching MOS technology while working on
semiconductor A semiconductor material has an value falling between that of a , such as metallic copper, and an , such as glass. Its falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. Its conducting properties may be altered in useful ways ...
bubble memory Bubble memory is a type of non-volatile memory, non-volatile computer memory that uses a thin film of a magnetic material to hold small magnetized areas, known as ''bubbles'' or ''domains'', each storing one bit of data. The material is arrange ...
. They realized that an electric charge was the analogy of the magnetic bubble and that it could be stored on a tiny MOS capacitor. As it was fairly straightforward to fabricate a series of MOS capacitors in a row, they connected a suitable voltage to them so that the charge could be stepped along from one to the next. This led to the invention of the charge-coupled device by Boyle and Smith in 1969. They conceived of the design of what they termed, in their notebook, "Charge 'Bubble' Devices".See and The initial paper describing the concept in April 1970 listed possible uses as
memory Memory is the faculty of the by which or is , stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If s could not be remembered, it would be impossible for language, r ...
, a delay line, and an imaging device. The device could also be used as a
shift register A shift register is a type of digital circuitIn theoretical computer science, a circuit is a model of computation in which input values proceed through a sequence of gates, each of which computes a function. Circuits of this kind provide a genera ...

. The essence of the design was the ability to transfer charge along the surface of a semiconductor from one storage capacitor to the next. The concept was similar in principle to the
bucket-brigade deviceA bucket brigade or bucket-brigade device (BBD) is a discrete-time In mathematical dynamics, discrete time and continuous time are two alternative frameworks within which to model variables that evolve over time. Discrete time Discrete sampled si ...
(BBD), which was developed at during the late 1960s. The first experimental device demonstrating the principle was a row of closely spaced metal squares on an
oxidized (mild reducing agent) are added to powdered potassium permanganate (strong oxidizing agent), a violent redox reaction accompanied by self-ignition starts. Redox (reduction–oxidation, pronunciation: or ) is a type of chemical reaction A ...
silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a Tetravalence, tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member ...

surface electrically accessed by wire bonds. It was demonstrated by
Gil Amelio Gilbert Frank Amelio (born March 1, 1943) is an American technology executive. Amelio worked at Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs (formerly named Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Telephone Laboratorie ...
,
Michael Francis TompsettMichael Tompsett (born 1939) is a British-born physicist, engineer, and inventor, and the founder director of the US software company TheraManager. He is a former researcher at the English Electric Valve Company, who later moved to Bell Labs No ...
and George Smith in April 1970. This was the first experimental application of the CCD in
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a that detects and conveys information used to make an . It does so by converting the variable of light s (as they or objects) into , small bursts of that convey the information. The waves can be light or other ...
technology, and used a depleted MOS structure as the photodetector. The first
patent A patent is a type of intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depe ...

() on the application of CCDs to imaging was assigned to Tompsett, who filed the application in 1971. The first working CCD made with
integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuit 200px, A circuit built on a printed circuit board (PCB). An electronic circuit is composed of indiv ...

technology was a simple 8-bit shift register, reported by Tompsett, Amelio and Smith in August 1970. This device had input and output circuits and was used to demonstrate its use as a shift register and as a crude eight
pixel In digital imaging Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imp ...

linear imaging device. Development of the device progressed at a rapid rate. By 1971, Bell researchers led by Michael Tompsett were able to capture images with simple linear devices. Several companies, including
Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor A semiconductor material has an electrical conductivity Electrical resistivity (also called specific electrical resistance or volume resistivity) is a fundamental pr ...
,
RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American Multination ...
and
Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America North America is a ...
, picked up on the invention and began development programs. Fairchild's effort, led by ex-Bell researcher Gil Amelio, was the first with commercial devices, and by 1974 had a linear 500-element device and a 2-D 100 × 100 pixel device. Steven Sasson, an electrical engineer working for
Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in , and is incorporated in . Kodak pro ...

, invented the first
digital still camera A digital camera is a camera A camera is an optical instrument used to capture an image An SAR radar imaging, radar image acquired by the SIR-C/X-SAR radar on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour shows the Teide volcano. The city of S ...
using a Fairchild CCD in 1975. The interline transfer (ILT) CCD device was proposed by L. Walsh and R. Dyck at Fairchild in 1973 to reduce smear and eliminate a mechanical shutter. To further reduce smear from bright light sources, the frame-interline-transfer (FIT) CCD architecture was developed by K. Horii, T. Kuroda and T. Kunii at
MatsushitaMatsushita (written: lit. "below the pine tree") is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Daisuke Matsushita (born 1981), a former Japanese football player *Hiroyuki Matsushita, Hiro Matsushita (born 1961), former Japanese C ...

(now Panasonic) in 1981. The first
KH-11 KENNEN The KH-11 KENNEN (later renamed CRYSTAL,p.199-200 then Evolved Enhanced CRYSTAL System, and codenamed 1010 and Key Hole) is a type of reconnaissance satellite first launched by the American National Reconnaissance Office in December 1976. M ...
reconnaissance satellite equipped with charge-coupled device array ( pixels) technology for imaging was launched in December 1976. Under the leadership of Kazuo Iwama,
Sony , commonly known as Sony and stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational Multinational may refer to: * Multinational corporation, a corporate organization operating in multiple countries * Multinational force, a military body from mult ...

started a large development effort on CCDs involving a significant investment. Eventually, Sony managed to mass-produce CCDs for their
camcorder A camcorder is an electronic device originally combining a video camera A video camera is a camera A camera is an optical Optics is the branch of physics Physics (from grc, φυσική (ἐπιστήμη), physikḗ (epistḗ ...

s. Before this happened, Iwama died in August 1982; subsequently, a CCD chip was placed on his tombstone to acknowledge his contribution. The first mass-produced consumer CCD
video camera A video camera is a camera A camera is an optical Optics is the branch of physics Physics (from grc, φυσική (ἐπιστήμη), physikḗ (epistḗmē), knowledge of nature, from ''phýsis'' 'nature'), , is the natural ...

, the CCD-G5, was released by Sony in 1983, based on a prototype developed by Yoshiaki Hagiwara in 1981. Early CCD sensors suffered from
shutter lagIn photography, shutter lag is the delay between triggering the shutter and when the photograph is actually recorded. This is a common problem in the photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by rec ...
. This was largely resolved with the invention of the
pinned photodiode A photodiode is a semiconductor p-n junction device that converts light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation within the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visible ...
(PPD). It was invented by
Nobukazu Teranishi is a Japanese engineer who researches image sensors, and is known for inventing the pinned photodiode, an important component of modern digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras prod ...
, Hiromitsu Shiraki and Yasuo Ishihara at
NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics Electronics comprises the physics, engineering, technology and applications that deal with the emission, flow and control of electrons in vacuum and matter. It uses active d ...
in 1980. They recognized that lag can be eliminated if the signal carriers could be transferred from the
photodiode A photodiode is a semiconductor p–n junction device that converts light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation within the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that can be visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visib ...

to the CCD. This led to their invention of the pinned photodiode, a photodetector structure with low lag, low
noise Noise is unwanted sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and the ...
, high
quantum efficiency In physics Physics (from grc, φυσική (ἐπιστήμη), physikḗ (epistḗmē), knowledge of nature, from ''phýsis'' 'nature'), , is the natural science that studies matter, its Motion (physics), motion and behavior through ...
and low dark current. It was first publicly reported by Teranishi and Ishihara with A. Kohono, E. Oda and K. Arai in 1982, with the addition of an anti-blooming structure. The new photodetector structure invented at NEC was given the name "pinned photodiode" (PPD) by B.C. Burkey at Kodak in 1984. In 1987, the PPD began to be incorporated into most CCD devices, becoming a fixture in
consumer electronic Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic ( analog or digital) equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment Entertainment is a form of activi ...
video cameras A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition (as opposed to a movie camera, which records images on film A film, also called a movie, motion picture or moving picture, is a work of visual art used to simul ...
and then
digital still camera A digital camera is a camera A camera is an optical instrument used to capture an image An SAR radar imaging, radar image acquired by the SIR-C/X-SAR radar on board the Space Shuttle Endeavour shows the Teide volcano. The city of S ...
s. Since then, the PPD has been used in nearly all CCD sensors and then
CMOS sensorAn active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they refraction, pass through or ...
s. In January 2006, Boyle and Smith were awarded the
National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a ...
Charles Stark Draper Prize The U.S. National Academy of Engineering annually awards the Draper Prize, which is given for the advancement of engineering and the education of the public about engineering. It is one of three prizes that constitute the "Nobel Prizes of Engineer ...
, and in 2009 they were awarded the
Nobel Prize for Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...
for their invention of the CCD concept. Michael Tompsett was awarded the 2010
National Medal of Technology and Innovation The National Medal of Technology and Innovation (formerly the National Medal of Technology) is an honor granted by the President of the United States to American inventors and innovators who have made significant contributions to the development o ...

, for pioneering work and electronic technologies including the design and development of the first CCD imagers. He was also awarded the 2012
IEEE Edison Medal The IEEE Edison Medal is presented by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and ...

for "pioneering contributions to imaging devices including CCD Imagers, cameras and thermal imagers".

# Basics of operation

In a CCD for capturing images, there is a photoactive region (an
epitaxial Epitaxy refers to a type of crystal growth or material deposition in which new crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic ...
layer of silicon), and a transmission region made out of a
shift register A shift register is a type of digital circuitIn theoretical computer science, a circuit is a model of computation in which input values proceed through a sequence of gates, each of which computes a function. Circuits of this kind provide a genera ...

(the CCD, properly speaking). An image is projected through a
lens A lens is a transmissive optical Optics is the branch of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its Motion (physics), motion and behavior through Spacetime, s ...

onto the capacitor array (the photoactive region), causing each capacitor to accumulate an electric charge proportional to the
light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation within the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visual perception, perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nan ...

intensity at that location. A one-dimensional array, used in line-scan cameras, captures a single slice of the image, whereas a two-dimensional array, used in video and still cameras, captures a two-dimensional picture corresponding to the scene projected onto the focal plane of the sensor. Once the array has been exposed to the image, a control circuit causes each capacitor to transfer its contents to its neighbor (operating as a shift register). The last capacitor in the array dumps its charge into a
charge amplifierA charge amplifier is an electronic current integrator that produces a voltage output proportional to the integrated value of the input current, or the total charge injected. The amplifier offsets the input current using a feedback reference ca ...

, which converts the charge into a
voltage Voltage, electric potential difference, electric pressure or electric tension is the difference in electric potential The electric potential (also called the ''electric field potential'', potential drop, the electrostatic potential) is the ...

. By repeating this process, the controlling circuit converts the entire contents of the array in the semiconductor to a sequence of voltages. In a digital device, these voltages are then sampled, digitized, and usually stored in memory; in an analog device (such as an analog video camera), they are processed into a continuous analog signal (e.g. by feeding the output of the charge amplifier into a low-pass filter), which is then processed and fed out to other circuits for transmission, recording, or other processing.

# Detailed physics of operation

## Charge generation

Before the MOS capacitors are exposed to light, they are
biased Bias is an inclination toward something, or a predisposition, partiality, prejudice, preference, or predilection. Bias may also refer to: Social sciences * Confirmation bias, tendency of people to favor information that confirm their beliefs ...
into the depletion region; in n-channel CCDs, the silicon under the bias gate is slightly ''p''-doped or intrinsic. The gate is then biased at a positive potential, above the threshold for strong inversion, which will eventually result in the creation of an ''n'' channel below the gate as in a
MOSFET The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET), also known as the metal–oxide–silicon transistor (MOS transistor, or MOS), is a type of insulated-gate field-effect transistor that is fabricated by th ...

. However, it takes time to reach this thermal equilibrium: up to hours in high-end scientific cameras cooled at low temperature. Initially after biasing, the holes are pushed far into the substrate, and no mobile electrons are at or near the surface; the CCD thus operates in a non-equilibrium state called deep depletion. Chapter 13.6. Then, when
electron–hole pair In the solid-state physics Solid-state physics is the study of rigid matter, or solids, through methods such as quantum mechanics, crystallography, electromagnetism, and metallurgy. It is the largest branch of condensed matter physics. Solid-state ...
s are generated in the depletion region, they are separated by the electric field, the electrons move toward the surface, and the holes move toward the substrate. Four pair-generation processes can be identified: * photo-generation (up to 95% of
quantum efficiency In physics Physics (from grc, φυσική (ἐπιστήμη), physikḗ (epistḗmē), knowledge of nature, from ''phýsis'' 'nature'), , is the natural science that studies matter, its Motion (physics), motion and behavior through ...
), * generation in the depletion region, * generation at the surface, and * generation in the neutral bulk. The last three processes are known as dark-current generation, and add noise to the image; they can limit the total usable integration time. The accumulation of electrons at or near the surface can proceed either until image integration is over and charge begins to be transferred, or thermal equilibrium is reached. In this case, the well is said to be full. The maximum capacity of each well is known as the well depth, typically about 105 electrons per pixel.

## Design and manufacturing

The photoactive region of a CCD is, generally, an
epitaxial Epitaxy refers to a type of crystal growth or material deposition in which new crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic ...
layer of
silicon Silicon is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Si and atomic number 14. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, and is a Tetravalence, tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member ...

. It is lightly ''p'' doped (usually with
boron Boron is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol B and atomic number 5. Produced entirely by cosmic ray spallation and supernovae and not by stellar nucleosynthesis, it is a low-abundance element in the Solar System a ...

) and is grown upon a
substrate Substrate may refer to: Physical layers *Substrate (biology), the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached **Substrate (locomotion), the surface over which an organism loco ...
material, often p++. In buried-channel devices, the type of design utilized in most modern CCDs, certain areas of the surface of the silicon are ion implanted with
phosphorus Phosphorus is a chemical element In chemistry, an element is a pure Chemical substance, substance consisting only of atoms that all have the same numbers of protons in their atomic nucleus, nuclei. Unlike chemical compounds, chemical el ...

, giving them an n-doped designation. This region defines the channel in which the photogenerated charge packets will travel. Simon Sze details the advantages of a buried-channel device:
This thin layer (= 0.2–0.3 micron) is fully depleted and the accumulated photogenerated charge is kept away from the surface. This structure has the advantages of higher transfer efficiency and lower dark current, from reduced surface recombination. The penalty is smaller charge capacity, by a factor of 2–3 compared to the surface-channel CCD.
The gate oxide, i.e. the
capacitor A capacitor is a device that stores electric charge in an electric field. It is a passivity (engineering), passive electronic component with two terminal (electronics), terminals. The effect of a capacitor is known as capacitance. While som ...

dielectric In electromagnetism Electromagnetism is a branch of physics involving the study of the electromagnetic force, a type of physical interaction that occurs between electric charge, electrically charged particles. The electromagnetic force i ...

, is grown on top of the epitaxial layer and substrate. Later in the process,
polysilicon Polycrystalline silicon, or multicrystalline silicon, also called polysilicon or poly-Si, is a high purity, polycrystalline A crystallite is a small or even microscopic crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose const ...
gates are deposited by
chemical vapor deposition Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a vacuum deposition Vacuum deposition is a family of processes used to deposit layers of material atom-by-atom or molecule-by-molecule on a solid surface. These processes operate at pressures well below atmo ...
, patterned with
photolithography In manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term for techniques that use to produce minutely patterned s of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a , to protect selected areas of it during subsequent , , or op ...
, and etched in such a way that the separately phased gates lie perpendicular to the channels. The channels are further defined by utilization of the
LOCOS LOCOS, short for LOCal Oxidation of Silicon, is a microfabrication Microfabrication is the process of manufacturing, fabricating miniature structures of micrometre scales and smaller. Historically, the earliest microfabrication processes were us ...
process to produce the channel stop region. Channel stops are thermally grown
oxide An oxide () is a chemical compound A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entity, molecular entities) composed of atoms from more than one chemical element, element held together by che ...
s that serve to isolate the charge packets in one column from those in another. These channel stops are produced before the polysilicon gates are, as the LOCOS process utilizes a high-temperature step that would destroy the gate material. The channel stops are parallel to, and exclusive of, the channel, or "charge carrying", regions. Channel stops often have a p+ doped region underlying them, providing a further barrier to the electrons in the charge packets (this discussion of the physics of CCD devices assumes an
electron The electron is a subatomic particle (denoted by the symbol or ) whose electric charge is negative one elementary charge. Electrons belong to the first generation (particle physics), generation of the lepton particle family, and are general ...

transfer device, though hole transfer is possible). The clocking of the gates, alternately high and low, will forward and reverse bias the diode that is provided by the buried channel (n-doped) and the epitaxial layer (p-doped). This will cause the CCD to deplete, near the
p–n junction A p–n junction is a boundary or interface between two types of semiconductor material A semiconductor material has an electrical conductivity Electrical resistivity (also called specific electrical resistance or volume resistivity) i ...
and will collect and move the charge packets beneath the gates—and within the channels—of the device. CCD manufacturing and operation can be optimized for different uses. The above process describes a frame transfer CCD. While CCDs may be manufactured on a heavily doped p++ wafer it is also possible to manufacture a device inside p-wells that have been placed on an n-wafer. This second method, reportedly, reduces smear, dark current, and
infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of Light, visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from ...

and red response. This method of manufacture is used in the construction of interline-transfer devices. Another version of CCD is called a peristaltic CCD. In a peristaltic charge-coupled device, the charge-packet transfer operation is analogous to the peristaltic contraction and dilation of the
digestive system The human digestive system consists of the human gastrointestinal tract, gastrointestinal tract plus the accessory organs of digestion (the tongue, salivary glands, pancreas, liver, and gallbladder). Digestion involves the breakdown of food in ...

. The peristaltic CCD has an additional implant that keeps the charge away from the silicon/
silicon dioxide Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of rutile. Ti(IV) centers are grey; oxygen centers are red. Notice that oxygen forms three bonds to titanium and titanium forms six bonds to oxygen. An oxide () is a chemical compound that con ...
interface and generates a large lateral electric field from one gate to the next. This provides an additional driving force to aid in transfer of the charge packets.

# Architecture

The CCD image sensors can be implemented in several different architectures. The most common are full-frame, frame-transfer, and interline. The distinguishing characteristic of each of these architectures is their approach to the problem of shuttering. In a full-frame device, all of the image area is active, and there is no electronic shutter. A mechanical shutter must be added to this type of sensor or the image smears as the device is clocked or read out. With a frame-transfer CCD, half of the silicon area is covered by an opaque mask (typically aluminum). The image can be quickly transferred from the image area to the opaque area or storage region with acceptable smear of a few percent. That image can then be read out slowly from the storage region while a new image is integrating or exposing in the active area. Frame-transfer devices typically do not require a mechanical shutter and were a common architecture for early solid-state broadcast cameras. The downside to the frame-transfer architecture is that it requires twice the silicon real estate of an equivalent full-frame device; hence, it costs roughly twice as much. The interline architecture extends this concept one step further and masks every other column of the image sensor for storage. In this device, only one pixel shift has to occur to transfer from image area to storage area; thus, shutter times can be less than a microsecond and smear is essentially eliminated. The advantage is not free, however, as the imaging area is now covered by opaque strips dropping the fill factor to approximately 50 percent and the effective
quantum efficiency In physics Physics (from grc, φυσική (ἐπιστήμη), physikḗ (epistḗmē), knowledge of nature, from ''phýsis'' 'nature'), , is the natural science that studies matter, its Motion (physics), motion and behavior through ...
by an equivalent amount. Modern designs have addressed this deleterious characteristic by adding microlenses on the surface of the device to direct light away from the opaque regions and on the active area. Microlenses can bring the fill factor back up to 90 percent or more depending on pixel size and the overall system's optical design. The choice of architecture comes down to one of utility. If the application cannot tolerate an expensive, failure-prone, power-intensive mechanical shutter, an interline device is the right choice. Consumer snap-shot cameras have used interline devices. On the other hand, for those applications that require the best possible light collection and issues of money, power and time are less important, the full-frame device is the right choice. Astronomers tend to prefer full-frame devices. The frame-transfer falls in between and was a common choice before the fill-factor issue of interline devices was addressed. Today, frame-transfer is usually chosen when an interline architecture is not available, such as in a back-illuminated device. CCDs containing grids of
pixel In digital imaging Digital imaging or digital image acquisition is the creation of a representation of the visual characteristics of an object, such as a physical scene or the interior structure of an object. The term is often assumed to imp ...

s are used in
digital camera A digital camera is a camera A camera is an optical Optics is the branch of physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its Motion (physics), motion and behav ...

s, optical scanners, and video cameras as light-sensing devices. They commonly respond to 70 percent of the incident light (meaning a quantum efficiency of about 70 percent) making them far more efficient than
photographic film Photographic film is a strip or sheet of transparent film baseA film base is a transparent substrate which acts as a support medium for the photosensitive emulsion An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally Miscibil ...
, which captures only about 2 percent of the incident light. Most common types of CCDs are sensitive to near-infrared light, which allows
infrared photography ''Top:'' tree photographed in the near infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is gen ...
,
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devices, and zero
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(or near zero lux) video-recording/photography. For normal silicon-based detectors, the sensitivity is limited to 1.1 μm. One other consequence of their sensitivity to infrared is that infrared from
remote control In electronics Electronics comprises the physics, engineering, technology and applications that deal with the emission, flow and control of electrons in vacuum and matter. It uses active devices to control electron flow by amplifier, ampl ...

s often appears on CCD-based digital cameras or camcorders if they do not have infrared blockers. Cooling reduces the array's dark current, improving the sensitivity of the CCD to low light intensities, even for ultraviolet and visible wavelengths. Professional observatories often cool their detectors with
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to reduce the dark current, and therefore the
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, to negligible levels.

## Frame transfer CCD

The frame transfer CCD imager was the first imaging structure proposed for CCD Imaging by Michael Tompsett at Bell Laboratories. A frame transfer CCD is a specialized CCD, often used in
astronomy Astronomy (from el, ἀστρονομία, literally meaning the science that studies the laws of the stars) is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and celestial event, phenomena. It uses mathematics, phys ...
and some
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s, designed for high exposure efficiency and correctness. The normal functioning of a CCD, astronomical or otherwise, can be divided into two phases: exposure and readout. During the first phase, the CCD passively collects incoming
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s, storing
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s in its cells. After the exposure time is passed, the cells are read out one line at a time. During the readout phase, cells are shifted down the entire area of the CCD. While they are shifted, they continue to collect light. Thus, if the shifting is not fast enough, errors can result from light that falls on a cell holding charge during the transfer. These errors are referred to as "vertical smear" and cause a strong light source to create a vertical line above and below its exact location. In addition, the CCD cannot be used to collect light while it is being read out. Unfortunately, a faster shifting requires a faster readout, and a faster readout can introduce errors in the cell charge measurement, leading to a higher noise level. A frame transfer CCD solves both problems: it has a shielded, not light sensitive, area containing as many cells as the area exposed to light. Typically, this area is covered by a reflective material such as aluminium. When the exposure time is up, the cells are transferred very rapidly to the hidden area. Here, safe from any incoming light, cells can be read out at any speed one deems necessary to correctly measure the cells' charge. At the same time, the exposed part of the CCD is collecting light again, so no delay occurs between successive exposures. The disadvantage of such a CCD is the higher cost: the cell area is basically doubled, and more complex control electronics are needed.

## Intensified charge-coupled device

An intensified charge-coupled device (ICCD) is a CCD that is optically connected to an image intensifier that is mounted in front of the CCD. An image intensifier includes three functional elements: a
photocathodeA photocathode is a surface engineered to convert light (photons The photon ( el, φῶς, phōs, light) is a type of elementary particle In particle physics, an elementary particle or fundamental particle is a subatomic particle that is not comp ...
, a micro-channel plate (MCP) and a
phosphor A phosphor is a substance that exhibits the phenomenon of luminescence; it emits light when exposed to some type of radiant energy. The term is used both for fluorescent or phosphorescent substances which glow on exposure to ultraviolet or ...

screen. These three elements are mounted one close behind the other in the mentioned sequence. The photons which are coming from the light source fall onto the photocathode, thereby generating photoelectrons. The photoelectrons are accelerated towards the MCP by an electrical control voltage, applied between photocathode and MCP. The electrons are multiplied inside of the MCP and thereafter accelerated towards the phosphor screen. The phosphor screen finally converts the multiplied electrons back to photons which are guided to the CCD by a fiber optic or a lens. An image intensifier inherently includes a shutter functionality: If the control voltage between the photocathode and the MCP is reversed, the emitted photoelectrons are not accelerated towards the MCP but return to the photocathode. Thus, no electrons are multiplied and emitted by the MCP, no electrons are going to the phosphor screen and no light is emitted from the image intensifier. In this case no light falls onto the CCD, which means that the shutter is closed. The process of reversing the control voltage at the photocathode is called ''gating'' and therefore ICCDs are also called gateable CCD cameras. Besides the extremely high sensitivity of ICCD cameras, which enable single photon detection, the gateability is one of the major advantages of the ICCD over the EMCCD cameras. The highest performing ICCD cameras enable shutter times as short as 200 picoseconds. ICCD cameras are in general somewhat higher in price than EMCCD cameras because they need the expensive image intensifier. On the other hand, EMCCD cameras need a cooling system to cool the EMCCD chip down to temperatures around . This cooling system adds additional costs to the EMCCD camera and often yields heavy condensation problems in the application. ICCDs are used in night vision devices and in various scientific applications.

## Electron-multiplying CCD

An electron-multiplying CCD (EMCCD, also known as an L3Vision CCD, a product commercialized by e2v Ltd., GB, L3CCD or Impactron CCD, a now-discontinued product offered in the past by Texas Instruments) is a charge-coupled device in which a gain register is placed between the shift register and the output amplifier. The gain register is split up into a large number of stages. In each stage, the electrons are multiplied by impact ionization in a similar way to an avalanche diode. The gain probability at every stage of the register is small (''P'' < 2%), but as the number of elements is large (N > 500), the overall gain can be very high ($g = \left(1 + P\right)^N$), with single input electrons giving many thousands of output electrons. Reading a signal from a CCD gives a noise background, typically a few electrons. In an EMCCD, this noise is superimposed on many thousands of electrons rather than a single electron; the devices' primary advantage is thus their negligible readout noise. The use of avalanche breakdown for amplification of photo charges had already been described in the in 1973 by George E. Smith/Bell Telephone Laboratories. EMCCDs show a similar sensitivity to #Intensified charge-coupled device, intensified CCDs (ICCDs). However, as with ICCDs, the gain that is applied in the gain register is stochastic and the ''exact'' gain that has been applied to a pixel's charge is impossible to know. At high gains (> 30), this uncertainty has the same effect on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as halving the
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(QE) with respect to operation with a gain of unity. However, at very low light levels (where the quantum efficiency is most important), it can be assumed that a pixel either contains an electron—or not. This removes the noise associated with the stochastic multiplication at the risk of counting multiple electrons in the same pixel as a single electron. To avoid multiple counts in one pixel due to coincident photons in this mode of operation, high frame rates are essential. The dispersion in the gain is shown in the graph on the right. For multiplication registers with many elements and large gains it is well modelled by the equation: $P\left (n \right ) = \frac\exp \left ( - \frac\right ) \quad \text n \ge m$ where ''P'' is the probability of getting ''n'' output electrons given ''m'' input electrons and a total mean multiplication register gain of ''g''. Because of the lower costs and better resolution, EMCCDs are capable of replacing ICCDs in many applications. ICCDs still have the advantage that they can be gated very fast and thus are useful in applications like range gate, range-gated imaging. EMCCD cameras indispensably need a cooling system—using either thermoelectric cooling or liquid nitrogen—to cool the chip down to temperatures in the range of . This cooling system unfortunately adds additional costs to the EMCCD imaging system and may yield condensation problems in the application. However, high-end EMCCD cameras are equipped with a permanent hermetic vacuum system confining the chip to avoid condensation issues. The low-light capabilities of EMCCDs find use in astronomy and biomedical research, among other fields. In particular, their low noise at high readout speeds makes them very useful for a variety of astronomical applications involving low light sources and transient events such as lucky imaging of faint stars, high speed photon counting photometry, Fabry-Pérot, Fabry-Pérot spectroscopy and high-resolution spectroscopy. More recently, these types of CCDs have broken into the field of biomedical research in low-light applications including small animal imaging, single-molecule, single-molecule imaging, Raman spectroscopy, super resolution microscopy as well as a wide variety of modern fluorescence microscopy techniques thanks to greater SNR in low-light conditions in comparison with traditional CCDs and ICCDs. In terms of noise, commercial EMCCD cameras typically have clock-induced charge (CIC) and dark current (dependent on the extent of cooling) that together lead to an effective readout noise ranging from 0.01 to 1 electrons per pixel read. However, recent improvements in EMCCD technology have led to a new generation of cameras capable of producing significantly less CIC, higher charge transfer efficiency and an EM gain 5 times higher than what was previously available. These advances in low-light detection lead to an effective total background noise of 0.001 electrons per pixel read, a noise floor unmatched by any other low-light imaging device.

# Use in astronomy

Due to the high quantum efficiencies of charge-coupled device (CCD) (the ideal
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is 100%, one generated electron per incident photon), linearity of their outputs, ease of use compared to photographic plates, and a variety of other reasons, CCDs were very rapidly adopted by astronomers for nearly all UV-to-infrared applications. Thermal noise and cosmic rays may alter the pixels in the CCD array. To counter such effects, astronomers take several exposures with the CCD shutter closed and opened. The average of images taken with the shutter closed is necessary to lower the random noise. Once developed, the dark frame subtraction, dark frame average image is then subtracted from the open-shutter image to remove the dark current and other systematic defects (dead pixels, hot pixels, etc.) in the CCD. Newer Skipper CCDs counter noise by collecting data with the same collected charge multiple times and has applications in precision light Dark matter, Dark Matter searches and neutrino measurements. The Hubble Space Telescope, in particular, has a highly developed series of steps (“data reduction pipeline”) to convert the raw CCD data to useful images.

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European Southern Observatory

CCD cameras used in astrophotography often require sturdy mounts to cope with vibrations from wind and other sources, along with the tremendous weight of most imaging platforms. To take long exposures of galaxies and nebulae, many astronomers use a technique known as autoguider, auto-guiding. Most autoguiders use a second CCD chip to monitor deviations during imaging. This chip can rapidly detect errors in tracking and command the mount motors to correct for them. An unusual astronomical application of CCDs, called drift-scanning, uses a CCD to make a fixed telescope behave like a tracking telescope and follow the motion of the sky. The charges in the CCD are transferred and read in a direction parallel to the motion of the sky, and at the same speed. In this way, the telescope can image a larger region of the sky than its normal field of view. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is the most famous example of this, using the technique to produce a survey of over a quarter of the sky. In addition to imagers, CCDs are also used in an array of analytical instrumentation including spectrometers and List of types of interferometers, interferometers.

# Color cameras

Digital color cameras generally use a Bayer filter, Bayer mask over the CCD. Each square of four pixels has one filtered red, one blue, and two green (the human eye is more sensitive to green than either red or blue). The result of this is that luminance information is collected at every pixel, but the color resolution is lower than the luminance resolution. Better color separation can be reached by three-CCD devices (3CCD) and a dichroic prism, dichroic beam splitter prism, that splits the image into red, green and blue components. Each of the three CCDs is arranged to respond to a particular color. Many professional video camera, professional video camcorders, and some semi-professional camcorders, use this technique, although developments in competing CMOS technology have made CMOS sensors, both with beam-splitters and bayer filters, increasingly popular in high-end video and digital cinema cameras. Another advantage of 3CCD over a Bayer mask device is higher
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(higher light sensitivity), because most of the light from the lens enters one of the silicon sensors, while a Bayer mask absorbs a high proportion (more than 2/3) of the light falling on each pixel location. For still scenes, for instance in microscopy, the resolution of a Bayer mask device can be enhanced by microscanning technology. During the process of co-site sampling, color co-site sampling, several frames of the scene are produced. Between acquisitions, the sensor is moved in pixel dimensions, so that each point in the visual field is acquired consecutively by elements of the mask that are sensitive to the red, green, and blue components of its color. Eventually every pixel in the image has been scanned at least once in each color and the resolution of the three channels become equivalent (the resolutions of red and blue channels are quadrupled while the green channel is doubled).

## Sensor sizes

Sensors (CCD / CMOS) come in various sizes, or image sensor formats. These sizes are often referred to with an inch fraction designation such as 1/1.8″ or 2/3″ called the optical format. This measurement originates back in the 1950s and the time of video camera tube, Vidicon tubes.

# Blooming

When a CCD exposure is long enough, eventually the electrons that collect in the "bins" in the brightest part of the image will overflow the bin, resulting in blooming. The structure of the CCD allows the electrons to flow more easily in one direction than another, resulting in vertical streaking. Some anti-blooming features that can be built into a CCD reduce its sensitivity to light by using some of the pixel area for a drain structure. James M. Early developed a vertical anti-blooming drain that would not detract from the light collection area, and so did not reduce light sensitivity.