Andor’s ultrasensitive Zyla sCMOS camera offers an unparalleled 1.2 electron rms typical read noise floor, achievable at 30 fps, representing 200MHz pixel readout. Furthermore, advancing readout to full speed has minimal impact on read noise, the Zyla offering a typical noise value of 1.45 electron rms at 100 full fps. For the best CCD cameras to even approach 2 electrons noise, a readout speed of 1MHz or slower is required. This minimal detection limit renders the Zyla sCMOS suitable for a wide variety of challenging low light imaging applications when compared to CCD cameras.

To learn more, download the Andor sCMOS Brochure to access the technical note entitled ‘Understanding Read Noise in sCMOS ’.

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Zyla offers the distinct capability to offer both Rolling shutter and Global (Snapshot) shutter readout modes within the same camera, such that the most appropriate mode can be selected dependent on application requirements. Note, a variant of the Zyla camera is available that offers only Rolling Shutter readout mode.

• Rolling shutter essentially means that different lines of the array are exposed at different times as the read out ‘wave’ sweeps through the sensor, a row in the middle starting the exposure at least 10ms before rows at the edges. The lowest readout noise and fastest frame rates are available from this mode.
• Global shutter which can also be thought of as a ‘snapshot’ exposure mode, means that all pixels of the array are exposed simultaneously, thus enabling ‘freeze frame’ capture of fast moving or fast changing events. This mode is closest to the exposure sequence of interline CCDs and is much more straightforward to synchronise to. For some particular applications, for example where it is required that different regions of the image maintain temporal correlation or where it is required to accurately synchronize to relatively short lived events, global shutter will be viewed as a necessity.

Rolling Shutter exposure sequence (single frame)

Global Shutter sequence (single frame)

To learn more, download the Andor sCMOS Brochure to access the technical note entitled ‘Rolling and Global Shutter ’.

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Extended Dynamic Range

The innovative Dual Amplifier architecture of the sCMOS sensor in Zyla uniquely circumvents the need to choose between high or low gain amplifiers, in that signal can be sampled simultaneously by both high gain (low noise) and low gain (high capacity) amplifiers. As such, the lowest noise of the sensor can be harnessed alongside the maximum well depth, affording widest possible dynamic range. Uniquely for such a relatively small pixel design, this allows for dynamic range performance of 25,000:1 in Zyla.

High contrast image of LED illuminated picture, captured with Neo camera. The zoomed region shows pixel regions that are sampled by both high gain (low noise) and low gain (high capacity) amplifiers respectively.

To learn more, download the Andor sCMOS Brochure to access the technical note entitled ‘Dual Amplifier Dynamic Range ’.

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Superior Image Quality

A lot of intelligence has been directed towards delivering best image quality and uniformity in the Zyla. The FPGA stores offset compensation maps at the pixel level (as opposed to column level) for different combinations of gains and readout speeds, thus minimizing fixed pattern noise. Then, a further set of real time algorithms provide compensation for any further dynamic fluctuations. Gain compensation maps adjust for any minor differences in pixel responsivity, resulting in a Photon Response Non-Uniformity (PRNU) specification of < 0.5%.

These attributes, combined with markedly superior performance and similar pricing, places Zyla sCMOS as the ideal camera with which to upgrade from existing interline CCDs.

Andor’s Dynamic Baseline Clamp affords superior background image quality (Dark image, Rolling Shutter, 10 ms exposure)

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Dynamic Baseline Clamp

The Dynamic Baseline Clamp was developed by Andor specifically for their sCMOS cameras. This real time algorithm uses available dark reference pixels on either side of each row of the sensor to compensate for any real time variation of the baseline (bias) offset.

• A flat baseline offset across the entire image
• Baseline is rigidly clamped between all images of a kinetic series
• Quantitative reproducibility of data taken in different sessions
• Significantly improves image quality

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Spurious Noise Filter

Andor’s Zyla sCMOS camera comes equipped with an in-built FPGA filter that operates in real time to reduce the frequency of occurrence of high noise pixels. This real time filter corrects for pixels that are above 5 electrons RMS and would otherwise appear as spurious ‘salt and pepper’ noise spikes in the image.

The appearance of such noisy pixels is analogous to the situation of Clock Induced Charge (CIC) noise spikes in EMCCD cameras, in that it is due to the fact that we have significantly reduced the noise in the bulk of the sensor that the remaining small percentage of spuriously high noise pixels can become an aesthetic issue. The filter employed dynamically identifies such high noise pixels and replaces them with the mean value of the neighbouring pixels.

Demonstration of effect of Spurious Noise Filter on a dark image, 20 ms exposure time, 560MHz readout speed.

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Hardware Timestamp

Andor’s Zyla sCMOS offers an FPGA generated hardware timestamp, coincident to the end of exposure with 25 nanosecond accuracy, essential to maintain accurate kinetic information relating to image capture.

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