CCD

CCD

Abbrev. for charge-coupled device. A light-sensitive electronic detector, invented 1970, now widely used in ground- and space-based astronomy for imaging, photometry, spectroscopy, astrometry, etc. CCDs are normally sensitive over a wide range of wavelengths from blue light to near-infrared; developments have extended the range further into the IR (see infrared detectors), and into the ultraviolet and X-ray regions (to energies up to about 6 keV). A CCD is small (typically several square centimeters) compared with a photographic plate, and therefore covers a relatively small field of view. It also has a lower resolution than a fine-grained photographic emulsion. It does, however, have a much higher quantum efficiency – i.e. is a much more efficient detector – than emulsion; exposure times are therefore relatively much shorter. CCDs are thus well suited to the imaging of faint objects. They also have a linear response over a wide range of illumination, and in a properly designed and operating CCD system, the response is very stable over long timescales.

Astronomical CCDs are fabricated as a two-dimensional array of tiny pixels (picture elements) on a thin wafer of semiconductor, usually silicon; there may be up to several thousand rows and columns of pixels. When light or other radiation is directed onto this array, each pixel responds to the photons falling on it by producing electrons. Electric charge thus accumulates in each pixel in proportion to the amount of incident radiation. After an exposure, these packets of charge are shifted out of the array and the accumulated charge in each pixel is measured, row by row. The values are digitized and stored in a computer, and may be used to form an image on a computer screen or may be further manipulated or analyzed. There is a direct relationship between the intensity of the recorded image and the original exposure, hence the linear response. Noise is, however, introduced as the charges are moved out of the CCD, amplified, digitized, and stored in the computer, thus placing a lower limit on the signal that can be accurately recorded; this readout noise can be reduced by cooling the CCD.

Collins Dictionary of Astronomy © Market House Books Ltd, 2006

CCD

(geology)

calcite compensation depth

(electronics)

charge-coupled device

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

CCD

Charge-Coupled Device

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CCD

(1) (Charge-Coupled Device) See CCD sensor.

(2) (Consumer Computing Device) An earlier term for a low-cost consumer-oriented computing product such as a PDA or Internet appliance.

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