Proton Radiation Damage Study of the Next Generation of Swept Charge Devices

The first generation of Swept Charge Device (SCD) the e2v technologies plc CCD54 was used in the Demonstration of a Compact Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (D-CIXS) launched in 2003 and again in the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) instrument currently in orbit around the Moon. The main source of decreased energy resolution in both cases is proton damage, from trapped and solar protons respectively. This paper presents the results from an experimental study to evaluate the performance of the next generation of SCD the CCD234 and CCD236 irradiated with a 10 MeV equivalent proton fluence of 3.0×10 8 protons.cm -2 , demonstrating the factor of two increase in radiation hardness when compared to the CCD54. In particular the increased dark current, decrease in energy resolution and the degradation of charge transfer efficiency (CTE) are described.