UC Berkeley

Detectors with sub-electron noise open new possibilities for the spectroscopy of Earth-like exoplanets, probing the faintest signatures of dark energy and dark matter with high-redshift galaxies, and observing fast-evolving transients. Multi-amplifier sensing (MAS) charge-coupled devices (CCDs) offer the capability to achieve ultra-low readout noise floors together with a readout rate comparable to current CCDs employed in observatories. This is achieved by distributing a chain of Skipper floating-gate amplifiers along the serial register, allowing charge to be read repeatedly, non-destructively, and independently. We show recent progress in optimizing the MAS CCD for use in astronomy. These include reducing noise to sub-electron levels with faster read times than Skipper CCDs, optical characterization results, and a discussion of the range of astronomical science cases and facilities that would be enabled by MAS CCDs.