Abstract: A custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) may provide strong signal integrity while reducing the load to a thermal system. Control and analog-to-digital conversion may be pushed into components close to the detector to maximize signal integrity. Processing functions may be performed at relatively high temperature, or the highest allowable temperatures, simplifying the system-level thermal design by not cooling components that do not require such cooling to function.

Abstract: A custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) may provide strong signal integrity while reducing the load to a thermal system. Control and analog-to-digital conversion may be pushed into components close to the detector to maximize signal integrity. Processing functions may be performed at relatively high temperature, or the highest allowable temperatures, simplifying the system-level thermal design by not cooling components that do not require such cooling to function.

Abstract: A charge-coupled device with a low-emissivity metal layer located between a sensing layer and a substrate provides reduction in ghost images. In a typical charge-coupled device of a silicon sensing layer, a silicon dioxide insulating layer, with a glass substrate and a metal carrier layer, a near-infrared photon, not absorbed in the first pass, enters the glass substrate, reflects from the metal carrier, thereby returning far from the original pixel in its entry path. The placement of a low-emissivity metal layer between the glass substrate and the sensing layer reflects near infrared photons before they reach the substrate so that they may be absorbed in the silicon nearer the pixel of their points of entry so that the reflected ghost image is coincident with the primary image for a sharper, brighter image.