Andor Technology has launched its Neo camera platform, based on scientific CMOS (sCMOS) technology. The Neo sCMOS offers ultra-low noise, extremely fast frame rates, wide dynamic range, high resolution and a large field of view, overcoming the performance trade-offs associated with traditional scientific CCD detectors.
Neo achieves an unprecedented single electron read noise while reading out 5.5 Megapixels at 30 frames/sec. Furthermore, the camera can be pushed to 100 full frames/sec, even faster with regions of interest, while still maintaining 1.4 electron noise. Neo offers deep vacuum cooling down to -40°C, which the company claims is critical to maintain the low noise advantage and a minimal pixel blemish specification across all exposure conditions. The vacuum architecture also enables a single window design for maximum photon throughput. The innovative dual amplifier architecture enables the camera to achieve a wide dynamic range of 30,000:1 - with 16-bit digitisation available at all frame rates - while still offering a relatively small 6.5µm pixel size, suitable for fluorescence microscopy techniques. Neo offers unparalleled FPGA intelligence for superior image quality and quantitative stability, coupled with a 4GB on-head image memory to facilitate faster frame rate performance.