Further Cooling Information For Emccd Models - Oxford Instruments ANDOR Newton CCD Hardware Manual

Newton
6.2 f c
URtHeR ooling
In normal operation, clocking the image and storage regions of the EMCCD sensor, along with clocking the register,
generates heat. The resistive heating process is dependent on the amplitude and frequency of the clocks, therefore the
faster a sensor is clocked, the more heat is generated. A TEC is capable of providing a temperature difference (delta)
between its cold and hot side that is dependent on the wattage of heat at the cold side (where the CCD is located).
Therefore the minimum temperature the CCD can achieve is dependent on the heat produced by the sensor.
Equally, if the hot side of the TEC can be maintained at a lower temperature then the cold side will also be at a lower
temperature, as the same delta is maintained. Air cooling the hot side achieves this by blowing air over the camera heat
sink. The limitation of this is that the level of cooling is dependent on the temperature of the ambient environment. In the
majority of cases this is sufficient, but if deeper cooling is necessary a water chiller or re-circulator can be employed.
This will keep the hot side of the TEC at a lower temperature as the heat can be transmitted to the water more efficiently
and the water temperature can also be controlled.
Any acquisition sequence that increases the proportion of the readout time spent performing vertical shifts, will have a
detrimental impact on the minimum achievable cooling. The acquisition settings that have the biggest impact on cooling
are:
1. Small Regions Of Interest (ROI) for both standard and crop mode
2. Using vertical binning
3. Faster vertical shift speeds
4. Increased vertical clock amplitude
Version 1.4 rev 13 Oct 2017
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