Comparison of proton irradiated P-channel and N-channel CCDs

Charge transfer inefficiency and dark current effects are compared for e2v Technologies plc p-channel and n-channel CCDs, both irradiated with protons. The p-channel devices, prior to their irradiation, exhibited twice the dark current and considerable worse charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) than a typical n-channel. The radiation induced increase in dark current was found to be comparable with n-channel CCDs, and its temperature dependence suggest that the divacancy is the dominant source of thermally generated dark current pre- and post-irradiation. The factor of improvement in tolerance to radiation induced CTI varied by between 15 and 25 for serial CTI and 8 and 3 for parallel CTI, between −70 °C and −110 °C, respectively.