C-RED 2 | High-Speed Cooled SWIR camera

Sensor Type

InGaAs

Resolution

640 x 512 px, 0.33 MP

Pixel pitch

15 µm

Shutter Mode - Frame rate full frame

Global - 602 Hz

Readout Noise

<30 e- (high gain, CDS)

Interface

USB3.1 and CameraLink (full)

SDK

Windows 10, Linux Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, ARM (for Jetson Tx2, Nano, Xavier NX and Xavier AGX)

API

C, C++, Python, LabView, MATLAB + µManager plug-in

Tag: IR: SWIR Brand: First Light Imaging

Ultra High-Speed Low Noise 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.

C-RED 2 air cooling vs liquid cooling comparison

Typical RON+ Dark as a function of sensor temperature and exposure time:

typical read out noise of C-RED 2 scientific swir camera at different temperatures

total noise (readout and dark) of C-red 2 SWIR ingaas camera

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

Sensor Specs
Sensor type	InGaAs
Resolution (pixels)	640 x 512
Max frame rate full frame	602 Hz
Windowing	Rows & columns
Max fps	32,066 Hz in 32 x 4 px
Full Well Capacity (e-)	~1.2M (low gain); ~120k (med gain); ~35k (high gain)
Min exposure time	165 ns
A/D converter	14-bit
Lens interface	C-mount
Cooling	TEC 2-stage (fan or water)