The harsh radiation environment of Lawrence Livermore’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) requires radiation tolerant scientific cameras for our wide array of diagnostics. Our current scientific cameras, SI-1000 CCD cameras developed by Spectral Instruments, have a multitude of problems on high neutron yield NIF experiments including upsets that cause complete loss of experimental data as well as significant damage to the sensors. Our goal was to develop a CMOS-based scientific camera platform that would be significantly more radiation tolerant than the current suite of CCD cameras used in NIF diagnostics. That is, the camera electronics would operate through high neutron yield experiments and that the sensors would sustain far less damage thus increasing their life expectancy. That camera platform, the 1600S CMOS cameras, developed by Spectral Instruments (SI) was designed to accept a variety of different sensors up to 60 mm x 60 mm depending on the specific application. In this paper we will discuss the development, general performance, and radiation performance of the CIS-54, a dump and read 1600S CMOS camera with a Stanford Research Institute (SRI) developed 4k x 4k sensor.
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