Performance Calibration of the Wavefront Sensor’s EMCCD Detector for the Cool Planets Imaging Coronagraph Aboard CSST

The wavefront sensor (WFS), equipped with an electron-multiplying charge-coupled device (EMCCD) detector, is a critical component of the Cool Planets Imaging Coronagraph (CPI-C) on the Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST).

Precise calibration of the WFS’s EMCCD detector is essential to meet the stringent requirements for high-contrast exoplanet imaging. This study comprehensively characterizes key performance parameters of the detector to ensure its suitability for astronomical observations.

Through a multi-stage screening protocol, we identified an EMCCD chip exhibiting high resolution and low noise. The electron-multiplying gain (EM Gain) of the EMCCD was analyzed to determine its impact on signal amplification and noise characteristics, identifying the optimal operational range. Additionally, noise properties such as readout noise were investigated.

Experimental results demonstrate that the optimized detector meets CPI-C’s initial application requirements, achieving high resolution and low noise. This study provides theoretical and experimental foundations for the use of EMCCD-based WFS in adaptive optics and astronomical observations, ensuring their reliability for advanced space-based imaging applications

Jiangpei Dou, Bingli Niu, Gang Zhao, Xi Zhang, Gang Wang, Baoning Yuan, Di Wang, Xingguang Qian

Comments: 12pages, 11figures, 1table
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:2511.20386 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:2511.20386v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2511.20386
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Journal reference: Journal of Imaging 2025
Related DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3390/jimaging11060203
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Submission history
From: BingLi Niu
[v1] Tue, 25 Nov 2025 15:07:28 UTC (7,249 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.20386
astrobiology, astronomy, ISS, exoplanet,