EMCCD Tutorial
Q14 What is Andor Technology's experience with EMCCDs?
Andor Technology pioneered the world’s first scientific EMCCD cameras, shipping
the initial cameras back in 2000 and winning the Photonics Circle of Excellence
award for EMCCD achievements in January 2001. Andor coined the term ‘Electron Multiplying
CCD (EMCCD)’, which has now been adopted right across this burgeoning industry.
Since then, Andor have consistently set higher and higher EMCCD performance standards
with the deep-cooled, vacuum-sealed iXonEM & iXonEM+ quantitative camera range.
For example, Andor introduced the world’s first back-illuminated EMCCDs in January
2002, alongside a unique baseline clamp solution for enhanced quantitative performance.
Andor’s method for achieving industry-lowest Clock Induced Charge was introduced
in early 2003 and the much revered quantitative and linearized EM gain control (RealGainTM)
was innovated in January 2006. Andor introduced the first and only EMCCD specifically
for spectroscopy applications, the NewtonEM. The company has also pioneered the
LucaEM range alongside the iXonEM DV885LC, the first low-cost EMCCD cameras, making
this ground-breaking technology available to every lab.
The company is also playing a pivotal role in increasing understanding of this ground-breaking
technology. In September 2003 it hosted the first ever international symposium on
EMCCD Technology – a dedicated conference which looked at the current usage and
future development of EMCCDs. Followed-up by a second international EMCCD symposium
in 2005 in association with Yale Medical School. The company has also launched www.emccd.com as an educational resource and
community forum, aimed at providing technical information, easy to follow tutorials
and application specific data and images. It is hoped this site will become the
number one resource for the growing EMCCD community.