The Leo 5514 Pro
We believe we have created the highest speed sCMOS device exceeding all those before, enabling faster scientific low-light imaging.
With back illumination, a 1.9 electron noise floor a global shutter and a 100Gb interface we think we have something very special.
And we are launching it on the 7th of November with units at SFN the following week.
High-Speed & High-Throughput
The Leo 5514 Pro delivers high speed, back illuminated sCMOS quality images at speed.
Achieving 994 fps at 2048x2048, the equivalent of nearly 10x that of a normal 4MP sCMOS devices offering similar QE and noise performance.
Usable Full Well Capacity
Speed has often come with a sacrifice. One area of sacrifice has been full well capacity, with some technologies setting this as low as 200 electrons to achieve speed.
The Leo 5514 Pro offers multiple gains in both 10 and 12 bit modes which offer usable full well levels to ensure you never saturate or crush data into the noise floor.
Speed at 10/12 Bits
Another sacrifice of high-speed imaging has been the movement back to the 8 bit scale of industrial imaging. While 8-bit, if accompanied by multiple gain settings, allows for signal observation it may hamper measurements.
The Leo 5514 Pro achieves high speeds in both its 10 and 12-bit read out modes. We offer 8-bit but see this as means for data reduction.
Simultaneous Data
Rolling shutter sensors digitize signals at different times starting in the top left and ending in the bottom right.
In the example shown at 500fps the circle in the top left occurs 2ms before that on the bottom right. These 2 intensity measurements may occur in the same frame but are not happening at the same time. The Leo 5514 Pro's Global Shutter ensures events in the same image happened at the same time.
Rolling Shutter Distortion Free
Just as measurements can be distorted by the Rolling Shutter so can objects shape. Here we see a star with a trialing trail in a rolling shutter experiment. Credit to Fu et al 2022 https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14225772
For more on Rolling Shutter see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_shutter
The Leo 5514 Pro's Global shutter architect digitizes pixels at the same time minimizing distortions.
Large Format sCMOS
The Leo 5514 Pro offers a 32mm field of view ensuring the largest possible area can be acquired.
For those operating on conventional microscope systems the green square area delivers a 24mm FOV at speeds up to 670fps in 10 bit.
For those wanting higher bit-depths the camera will run with the same area at 350fps 12-bit or 80 fps 16-bit.
Data Reduction
Cameras running at high speed create large amounts of data. In order to reduce this the Leo 5514 Pro, along with many other Tucsen cameras, has a multi ROI tool to eliminate un-needed data.
The Leo 5514 Pro has another trick up its sleeve: an 8 bit mode coupled with a digital gain allowing users to pick how the scale their image relative to the data in their images.
Faster Multichannel
Rolling Shutter cameras operating in multichannel experiments need to operate in a pseudo Global Shutter mode to ensure there is no mixing between channels.
This mode requires that the illumination is off for the time to acquire a single frame between channels. The example shows how a Rolling Shutter camera running at 500fps halves its frame rate in this mode, whereas the Leo 5514 Pro maintains its speed.
Light Efficient Multichannel
The alternative to going faster than a Rolling Shutter camera would be to use this time to acquire more light.
In the example shown we see that Global shutter devices like the Leo 5514 Pro can use the down time caused by the pseudo Global Shutter to simply capture more photons.
Is Rolling Shutter Technology Dead?
No, far from it. Rolling shutter cameras are still a leading technology for many applications offering the highest QE and lowest Read Noise. For example our soon to be released Aries 6504 offers 95% peak QE, speeds of up to 300fps and read noises as low as 0.43e-.
However, if you want pure speed, we recommend the Leo 5514 Pro for all the reasons noted above.