Basic Information

Reference Number

0000223111

Issuing Organization

University of Ottawa

Solicitation Type

ACAN - Advance Contract Award Notice (Formal)

Solicitation Number

33449-2A-ACAN

Title

Prototype 16 Mpix EUV/Soft X-ray sCMOS Cameras

Source ID

PU.AC.ON.11752.C84282

Agreement Types

Broader Public Sector (BPS)

Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA)

Details

Location

Canada, Ontario

Delivery Point

25 Templeton Street (ARC Building)
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K1N 7N9

Purchase Type

Duration: TBD

Description

BACKGROUND:
Notice is hereby given by the University of Ottawa of the intent to enter into a contract with Axis-Photonique Inc. to procure unique prototype Soft X-ray sCMOS cameras:

16 Mpix 9µm sCMOS EUV Camera optimized for 10 kHz laser, Mounted on a DN160CF Flange, AXIS-SXRF-4040-EUV (10 kHz),
16 Mpix 9µm sCMOS EUV Camera optimized for 1 kHz laser, Mounted on a DN160CF Flange, AXIS-SXRF-4040-EUV (1 kHz),

Each camera has high Quantum Efficiency in both the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV, 10-120 nm) and Soft X-ray ranges (below 2 keV) and is able to acquire low noise images with a frame rate up to 20 Hz. They come with all required cables (CameraLink and electrical) and a CameralLink FrameGrabber PCI card. A generic control application with an SDK (Software Development Kit) is provided.

These items will be integrated into the Coherent X-ray Photonics facilities in the Advanced Research Complex at the University of Ottawa
PROCESS;
Suppliers who consider their equipment functional, successfully tested, readily available and fully compliant to the ACAN minimum requirements may submit in writing a statement of specifications to the contact person identified in this Notice, on or before the closing date of this Notice. In the statement of specifications, the supplier must unequivocally demonstrate how their equipment, at minimum, equals, or exceeds the stated requirements.

If no other supplier submits a statement of specifications, on or before the closing date of this Notice, the competitive requirements of the University of Ottawa will be considered having been met.
Following notification to suppliers not successful in unequivocally demonstrating that their statement of specifications equals or exceeds the requirements set out in this Notice, the contract may then be awarded to the pre-identified supplier.
Date of issue: May 6th, 2022
Closing Date: May 21st, 2022, at 3:00:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time

INTENDED USE:
The research program that will be supported by this purchase is a joint effort of Molecular Photonics and Extreme Photonics groups located in the Advanced Research Complex (ARC) at the University of Ottawa. The overall goal is to develop a laser-based source of coherent soft-X-rays that will be used to image and probe matter with high spatial-resolution, high time-resolution while simultaneously identifying the atomic constituents in the material.
Ultrafast soft X-ray spectroscopy studies like this are usually done at national-scale free electron laser facilities, which are radically different both in laser technology and in scale (~$1B) of the facilities. There exists only one free electron laser in North America (Stanford, CA, USA). We are developing a tabletop source of soft X-rays at the university which is based on High Harmonic Generation (HHG). This relies on a very high intensity state-of-the-art driving laser and a soft X-ray generation process which involves a highly nonlinear dependence on the peak intensity. A key component in our planned experiments is a fast frame rate, high sensitivity and large area soft X-ray camera used to image the transient X-ray spectrum. Via a 2018 Memorandum of Understanding, the Helmholtz-Zentrum-Berlin (HZB Germany) is developing for uOttawa a unique high resolution, high transmission X-ray spectrometer based on a broadband flat-field design.
In order to achieve the required specifications from our unique HZB-designed flat-field broadband X-ray spectrometers which are optimized to match our HHG lasers sources (1 kHz and 10 kHz TRUMPF systems), we require unique prototype X-ray imaging detectors which have (i) very large area (> 35x35 mm square) in order to simultaneously image multiple X-ray transitions, (ii) high image frame rate (i.e. sCMOS) and (iii) enhanced Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray sensitivity (Quantum Efficiency) in order to achieve the signal-to-noise ratios required.
Justification of Pre-Selected Supplier:
Supplier: Axis-Photonique Inc.
Justification:
The present contract for two soft X-ray sCMOS cameras is for unique prototypes developed by Axis-Photonique. The required parameters of each of the two prototypes are optimized for the HZB-design flat field X-ray spectrometer combined with the unique 1kHz and 10 kHz HHG laser sources developed by Dr. Paul Corkum and Dr. Albert Stolow who are collaborating on this project. No other supplier prototypes the unique large area (required for flat-field), high frame rate and high quantum efficiency soft X-ray cameras we require for this project.

AXIS-SXRF-4040-EUV is a new prototype sCMOS camera for measurement of soft x-rays from 20 eV to 2 keV. This camera is an improved version of the prototype AXIS-SXR recently developed and characterized by the detector group and SEXTANTS team of SOLEIL Synchrotron [“Characterization of a back-illuminated CMOS Camera for soft x-ray coherent scattering” K. Desjardins, H. Popescu, P. Mercère, C. Menneglier, R. Gaudemer, K. Thånell, N. Jaouen. AIP Conference Proceedings 2054, 060066 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5084697 , Published Online: 16 January 2019].

The AXIS-SXRF-4040-EUV prototype is based on a new 16 Mpix backside illuminated scientific CMOS (BSI-sCMOS) which is uniquely optimized for high Quantum Efficiency in both the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV, 10-120 nm) and Soft X-ray ranges (below 2 keV) and is able to acquire low noise images with a frame rate up to 20 Hz. It is compact and high vacuum compatible (either DN160CF or DN200CF flange), comes with all required cables (CameraLink and electrical) and a CameralLink FrameGrabber PCI card. A generic control application with an SDK (Software Development Kit) is provided.

Each prototype camera will be parametrized for operation at its associated laser repetition rate (1 or 10 kHz) via optimization of the Region of Interest, Exposure Time and Gain.

X-ray Sensor:

Sensor Type:                      GPIXEL GSENSE4040 BSI SP3. Effective area = 36.9 mm x 36.9 mm square.
Energy Range:                    0.3 – 1.8 keV
Quantum Efficiency (QE): >90% (0.4-1.0 keV) [Harada et al. Appl. Phys. Express 13 016502 (2020)]
Spatial resolution:              < 15 um (0.3-1.8 keV) [Desjardins et al, J. Synchrotron Rad. 27 (2020)]
Number of pixels:                             4096 x 4096
Pixel size:                           9 µm
Digital encoder:                 16-bit (High Dynamic Range); 12-bit (High Gain/Low Gain)
Exposure times:                 10 µs - 300sec
Frame rate:                         20fps via CameraLink; 10fps via USB3.0
Gain (ADU/e-):                  0.1 DN/e- (Low gain); 1.8 DN/e- (HDR); 2.7 DN/e- (High Gain)
Full well capacity (e-):      39 ke- (Low gain); 34 ke- (HDR); 1.3 ke- (High Gain)
Readout noise (e- rms):     25 e- (Low gain); 3.3 e- (HDR); 2.6 e- (High Gain)
Dynamic range:                  1600 (Low gain); 11 000 (HDR); 500 (High Gain)
Dark current:                      <0.1 e-/p/s (@ -15 °C)
Integral non-linearity:        <1%
Photon Response Non Uniformity (PRNU): <0.2%
Defective pixels:                <400 pixels in total
Defective line, column or cluster:   0 after firmware correction
Shutter mode:                     Rolling
Trigger modes:                   Software, External

Frame Rate
Sensor pixel clock rate= 50MHz (clock cycle time = 20ns).
A full row is read in 516 clocks (512 for data, 4 for other use): read time per row = 10.32 µs.
This defines the minimum exposure time = 10.32 µs. [N.B. 10 kHz = 100 µs period, 1 kHz = 1000 µs period]
Full frame (4096 rows) read = 23.6 ms: maximum frame rate = 23.7 fps (frames per second).
Full Cameralink allows a maximum full frame rate of 20 fps.

Rolling Shutter:
A CMOS sensor features one ADC per column, making conversion time significantly faster. In order to further maximize speed and frame rates, each individual row of pixels on the sensor begins the next frame’s exposure after completing the readout for the previous frame. This is the rolling shutter, which makes CMOS cameras very fast, but with a small time delay between each row of the image and an overlapping exposure between image frames. The readout process along rows of a CMOS sensor is extremely fast: each row of the sensor can be read in 10.32 µs. Therefore, all individual rows are exposed for the same time but are shifted in time by 10.32 µs compared to the previous one.

Image Modes:
There are 3 image modes available: Low Gain, High Gain, High Dynamic Range, all with the same frame rate.
Low Gain (LG) mode: has a high full-well capacity and is suitable for a strong signals.
High Gain (HG) mode: has low readout noise and is suitable for weak signals.
High Dynamic Range (HDR): CMOS sensor simultaneously reads LG and HG images.

Sensor Cooling:
The sensor is cooled using a Peltier module (Thermoelectric cooler or TEC). The hot side of the TEC must be cooled by circulating water. TEC theoretical limit = 50°C lower than the water temperature.

Trigger Modes:
3 different modes: Free-run, Software Triggered, Externally Triggered.

Software: MOSAIC 1.6 Application
AXIS-SXR comes with Mosaic 1.6.6 for Windows. This application works on Windows 7 (and above) and requires a PC with an i5 processor (or equivalent), 8GB of RAM, and PCI Express slot.

University Contact:
Roger Wills
Approvisionneur principal, recherche | Senior Procurement Officer, Research
Strategic Project Management Group (SPMG) | Procurement Services
Université d'Ottawa | University of Ottawa
550 Cumberland (L315)
Ottawa, ON K1N 7B7
rwills@uottawa.ca
613-562-5800 (7113)

Dates

Publication

2022/05/05 10:11:12 AM EDT

Bid Intent

Not Available

Question Acceptance Deadline

2022/05/20 12:00:00 AM EDT

Questions are submitted online

Yes

Closing Date

2022/05/21 03:00:00 PM EDT

Contact Information

Roger Wills

613-562-5800 ext. 7113

rwills@uottawa.ca

Bid Submission Process

Bid Submission Type

Electronic Bid Submission

Pricing

Lump sum

© MERX - All rights reserved. No part of the information on this Web Site may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of MERX and the Minister of the participating government department (if applicable). MERX, the Minister nor the Contracting Authority will assume responsibility or liability for the accuracy of the information contained in the publication.