Photon Detectors: CCD vs CMOS

This lecture covers the operation and characteristics of photon detectors, focusing on Charge-Coupled Devices (CCD) and Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) devices. It explains how CCDs work with linked capacitors and shift registers, leading to potential data-transfer bottlenecks and slower frame rates. On the other hand, CMOS devices offer rapid charge-to-voltage conversion, massive parallel readout, and very low readout noise. The lecture also discusses blooming and smearing phenomena in CCD and CMOS devices, as well as the requirements for photon detectors in X-ray Free-Electron Laser (XFEL) experiments, emphasizing the need for integrating detectors with high sensitivity and large dynamic range.