A bipolar floating base detector (FBD) for CCD image sensors

Abstract

A new bipolar charge detector, called the Floating Base Detector (FBD), fabricated in a standard CCD image sensor process, is presented. It can be used as an output structure for CCD registers or as a compact pixel-gain element. The FBD, with a charge handling capability of 30,000 electrons, has achieved a dynamic range of 84 dB over 5 MHz bandwidth which corresponds to a noise electron equivalent of 1.9 electrons.<>