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Charge Coupled Devices

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Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics

Abstract

CCDs have been “workhorse” detectors providing imaging photon counting with spectroscopy at the prime focus of X-ray telescopes for almost three decades, and in the case of the “great observatories” of XMM-Newton and Chandra have been returning science data for over 20 years. The CCD optimized for X-ray detection is often different from its variant working in the visible light region. This chapter describes the key performance parameters of relevance to the X-ray CCDs, including instrument considerations and examples, together with performance over time. While design considerations such as noise and QE are described, long-term operational problems arising from radiation damage and contamination are also considered.

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Correspondence to A. D. Holland .

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Bautz, M.W., Holland, A.D., Lumb, D.H. (2023). Charge Coupled Devices. In: Bambi, C., Santangelo, A. (eds) Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4544-0_17-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4544-0_17-1

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