While charge-coupled device ( CCD ) technology is often perceived to provide nearly optimum signal multiplexing and very low imager noise, coupling high performance detectors ( at cutoff wavelengths from 0.6 žmto 17 um ) to CMOS multiplexers provides lower (<10 e-) read noise at high data rates using several pixel amplifier schemes. This superiority is fundamental and has been validated on infrared and visible focal plane arrays. Thus the robust pixel-based signal amplification facilitated by sub-micron CMOS is stimulating low-noise focal plane array (FPA) development for discriminating applications including infrared astronomy, wavefront sensing, spectroscopy, and spaceborne images. Enabled by Moore's Law and concomitant increases in integration density, commercial imagers for consumer video are also providing very low read noise and high sensitivity. Hence we report the ability to usefully detect quanta at non-cryogenic operating temperatures because read noise is at the single-electron level at high video rates. While such advances are typically first demonstrated on infrared sensors, the enhancements migrate to visible devices as soon as the available lithography of the prevailing silicon CMOS technology permits, because visible imager pixels are necessarily much smaller to match the optical blur.
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