Megapixels @ Megahertz – The AGIPD high-speed cameras for the european XFEL

Abstract The European XFEL is an extremely brilliant Free Electron Laser Source with a very demanding pulse structure: trains of 2700 X-ray pulses are repeated at 10 Hz. The pulses inside the train are spaced by 220 ns and each one contains up to 10 12  photons of 12.4 keV, while being ≤ 100 fs in length. AGIPD, the Adaptive Gain Integrating Pixel Detector, is a hybrid pixel detector developed by DESY, PSI, and the Universities of Bonn and Hamburg to cope with these properties. It is a fast, low noise integrating detector, with single photon sensitivity (for E γ ⪆ 6 keV ) and a large dynamic range, up to 10 4 photons at 12.4 keV. This is achieved with a charge sensitive amplifier with 3 adaptively selected gains per pixel. 352 images can be recorded at up to 6.5 MHz and stored in the in-pixel analogue memory and read out between pulse trains. The core component of this detector is the AGIPD ASIC, which consists of 64 × 64 pixels of 200 µm × 200 µm . Control of the ASIC’s image acquisition and analogue readout is via a command based interface. FPGA based electronic boards, controlling ASIC operation, image digitisation and 10 GE data transmission interface AGIPD detectors to DAQ and control systems. An AGIPD 1 Mpixel detector has been installed at the SPB 1 experimental station in August 2017, while a second one is currently commissioned for the MID 2 endstation. A larger (4 Mpixel) AGIPD detector and one to employ Hi-Z sensor material to efficiently register photons up to E γ ≈ 25 keV are currently under construction.