Английская Википедия:Digicon
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:More footnotes
A digicon detector is a spatially resolved light detector using the photoelectric effect directly. It uses magnetic and electric fields operating in a vacuum to focus the electrons released from a photocathode by incoming light onto a collection of silicon diodes. It is a photon-counting instrument, so most useful for weak sources.[1] One of digicon's advantages is its very large dynamic range and it results from the short response and decay times of silicon diodes.[2]
Development
In 1971, E.A. Beaver and Carl McIlwain successfully demonstrated a way in which silicon diodes can be used in digital tube by placing a silicon diode array that contained 38 elements in the same chamber as a photocathode.[2] The design and manufacture of the Digicon tube is attributed to John Choisser of the Electronic Vision Corporation.[3]
Digicon detectors were used on the original instruments for the Hubble Space Telescope, but are very rarely used in new designs, where CMOS active-pixel detectors can achieve the same performance without the need for large electric fields or complicated vacuum assemblies.Шаблон:Citation needed For instance, there were two pulse-counting Digicon detectors in the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph installed on the Hubble Space Telescope from 1990–1997, used to record ultraviolet spectra.[4] Digicon is also used in digital imaging such as the case of a scanning gage using Digicon imaging tube, which generates a two-dimensional view with high spatial resolution when an object is scanned past the Digicon.[5]
References