Investigation into Noise and Stability Effects on CCD and Readout Electronics with Reference to the PLATO Mission

This thesis addresses various noise and stability effects with respect to ChargeCoupled Devices (CCDs), CCD camera readout electronics and Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs). In Chapter 1 a general overview of CCD technology and description of the various detector types and their parameters is given, followed by a brief review of the planet finding missions that use instruments containing CCD cameras. A more detailed description of the PLATO mission is provided in Chapter 2. This includes mission objectives and a short characterisation of the CCD detector and the readout electronics intended for the PLATO normal cameras. The initial study presented in Chapter 3 focuses on investigation of the photometric stability of LEDs and their applicability to the study of highly stable CCD cameras. Two key issues are explored, the ageing effect and temperature sensitivity. Chapter 4 discusses various aspects of ElectroMagnetic Compatibility (EMC) testing of space equipment with emphasis on the PLATO mission EMC requirements. Chapter 5 describes the conducted susceptibility study of the PLATO Normal-Front-End Electronics (N-FEE) board. A technique for performing conducted susceptibility measurements in practice is demonstrated in both Common Mode (CM) and Differential Mode (DM) configurations. In addition, a simulation of the Correlated Double Sampling (CDS) circuit is presented and compared against the output of a real measurement. In the final study described in Chapter 6, the temperature sensitivities of the CCD output stage and PLATO N-FEE board are investigated. Two key effects are studied, offset and gain temperature sensitivities. Chapter 7 presents the final interpretation of the findings in the form of implications for the PLATO mission. Requirements for the filter board are discussed, as well as the temperature stability requirements for both the CCD and the N-FEE