Aquarius, a new infrared CCD

Aquarius is a high flux 1Kx1K Si:As array for ground-based observations in the mid-infrared, developed at Raytheon Vision Systems.

It is a high flux version of the MIRI arrays developed for the James Webb Space Telescope, with a much larger storage capacity, as required by ground-based instruments.

The Aquarius array will be used by the VLT mid-infrared instrument VISIR and also in the VLTI interferometer instrument MATISSE.

It has a storage capacity of 15 million electrons, 64 parallel video output channels and can be read out at frame rates of up to 150 Hz. The unit cell design consists of a simple source follower but also offers switchable gain (storage capacities switchable between 15 million and 1 million electrons). Centred windowing is also possible.