Ultra High-Speed Low Noise Scientific SWIR Imaging
C-RED 2 is the most versatile SWIR InGaAs scientific camera on the market allowing:
- fast framing (600Hz full frame) with high sensitivity (<30 e- of readout noise)
- long exposures (several minutes) with low dark current (<2000 e-/sec/pix)
C-RED 2 integrates a top of the art InGaAs sensor, able to detect wavelength ranges between 0.9 and 1.7 μm with more than 70% Quantum Efficiency (reaches 90% at -40C). It integrates a VGA (640X512) 15μm pixel pitch and 9.60 X 7.68 mm array with 3 levels of gain.
Noise features:
C-RED 2 offers two different ways of cooling:
- Air cooling down to -15°C for applications that don’t require very low noise performances, compact, except data and power connection there is no needed accessories.
- Liquid cooling enables to cool down the camera to -40°C and reach unprecedented noise performances.
Liquid cooling allows to work without fan for vibration sensitive applications.
Typical RON+ Dark as a function of sensor temperature and exposure time:
Speed features:
C-RED 2 uses the Camera Link® Full interface. This protocol requires 2 data cables.
The camera has been developed and tested with specific grabbers for which a full SDK + GUI are provided:
- Matrox Radient (ev-CL)
- Teledyne Dalsa (Xcelera-CL + PX8 Full)
- ETD (VisionLink F4)
C-RED 2 can also work with USB 3.1 Gen 1 interface(USB-C connector). In this configuration, C-RED 2 is detected as a composite USB device (control + acquisition interface).
Readout Modes and Integration Times:
The acquisition speed can be set from 0.01 to 600 fps, the integration time can be set from 20μs to ~1/fps.
Different available Readout Modes:
- Single Read: The entire frame is read before a reset period (with CDS)
- Integrated Multiple Readout (IMRO): he user must specify a number of multiple non-destructive reads which corresponds to a number of frames that are read and delivered at a selected speed. It’s a burst mode.
Cropping and Windowing:
It is possible to select one region of interest and acquire datas from this ROI only, column granularity is 32 and rows granularity is 4. Speed increases with read array reduction.
Want to learn more? Check out these 8 reasons to buy a C-RED
C-RED 2 Applications
- Defense & Security
- Adaptive Optics for Astronomy
- Astronomical Observations
- Hyper Spectral Imaging
- Spectroscopy
- Raman Spectroscopy
- Laser Communications
- Semiconductor Inspection
- Solar Cells Inspection
- OCT Imaging
- Small animal imaging (fluorescence in the NIR-II & SWIR)
- NIR-II Photodynamic Therapy
- Bio Imagery
- Fluorescence
Publications featuring C-RED 2
- Case Study: SCExAO NAOJ – SUBARU Telescope
- Case Study: SWIR Fluorescence in Life Sciences: a glimpse on new biomarkers imaging
- FOCUS on: Development of fluorescent biomarkers with C-RED 2
C-RED 2 Software Requirements
In order to run First Light Imaging software, the recommended minimum system requirements are the following :
RAM : 8Go minimum, more for C-BLUE One UV
Processor : Intel® CoreTM i5 or higher
Screen resolution : at least 1920 x 1080
First Light imaging software is cross-platform :
Operating system
- Windows® 10 & Windows® 11
- Linux® Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, 18.04 LTS & 20.04 LTS
- NVIDIA® Jetson Tx2, Xavier NX and Nano (only with USB 3 interface)
- CentOS 7.9
SDK Plug-ins
- Matlab
- LabVIEW
- µManager
- Python