With the increased brilliance of state-of-the-art Synchrotron radiation sources and the advent of Free Electron Lasers enabling revolutionary science with EUV to X-ray photons comes an urgent need for suitable photon imaging detectors. Requirements include high frame rates, very large dynamic range, single-photon counting capability with low probability of false positives, and (multi)-megapixels. PERCIVAL ("Pixelated Energy Resolving CMOS Imager, Versatile and Large") is currently being developed by a collaboration of DESY, RAL, Elettra and DLS to address this need for the soft X-ray regime. PERCIVAL is a monolithic active pixel sensor (MAPS), i.e. based on CMOS technology. It will be back-thinned to access its primary energy range of 250 eV to 1 keV with target efficiencies above 90%. According to its preliminary specifications, the roughly 10 × 10 cm 2 , 3520 × 3710 pixel monolithic sensor will operate at frame rates up to 120 Hz (commensurate with most FELs) and use multiple gains within its 27 µm pixels to measure (e.g. at 500 eV) 1 to ∼10 5 simultaneously-arriving photons. Currently, small-scale front-illuminated prototype systems (160 × 210 pixels) are undergoing detailed testing with visible-light as well as X-ray photons.

This paper describes a solid-state sensor for ultra-high-speed (UHS) imaging. The 'Kirana' sensor was designed and manufactured in a 180 nm CMOS technology to achieve full-frame 0.7 Megapixel video capture at speeds at 2 MHz. The 30 µm pixels contain a pinned photodiode, a set of 180 low-leakage storage cells, a floating-diffusion, and a source follower output structure. Both the individual cells and the way they are arranged in the pixel are novel. The pixel architecture allows correlated double sampling for low noise operation.In the fast mode, the storage cells are operated as a circular buffer, where 180 consecutive frames are stored until receipt of a trigger; up to 5 video-bursts per second can be read out. In the 'slow' mode, the storage cells act like a pipeline; the sensor can be read out like a conventional sensor at a continuous frame rate of 1,180 fps. The sensor architecture is fully scalable in resolution since memory cells are located inside each pixel. The pixel architecture is scalable in memory depth (number of frames) as a trade-off with pixel size, dependent on application. The present implementation of 0.7 Mpixels has an array focal plane which is optimized for standard 35 mm optics, whilst offering a competitive 180-frame recording depth.The sensor described has been manufactured and is currently being characterized. Operation of the sensor in the fast mode at 2 million frames per second has been achieved. Details on the camera/sensor operation are presented together with first experimental results.

In this paper the back-side-illuminated Percival 2-Megapixel (P2M) detector is presented, along with its characterization by means of optical and X-ray photons. For the first time, the response of the system to soft X-rays (250 eV to 1 keV) is presented. The main performance parameters of the first detector are measured, assessing the capabilities in terms of noise, dynamic range and single-photon discrimination capability. Present limitations and coming improvements are discussed.

Over the last decade, synchrotron radiation sources have seen a significant increase in brilliance, and the advent of free electron lasers has made entire new research fields accessible to investigations with X-rays. These advances in light source capabilities have resulted not only in a host of scientific advances and discoveries, but also in a need for a new generation of X-ray imaging detectors that can match the sources' capabilities in terms of frame rate and image dynamic range while recording image information with fine granularity over a large - preferably uninterrupted - (multi)megapixel area with single-photon sensitivity. Developing such next-generation imagers is both costly and time-consuming, and the requirements at many photon science facilities are similar enough to invite a collaborative effort. The Percival ("Pixellated Energy Resolving CMOS Imager, Versatile And Large") imager is being developed by a collaboration of DESY, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), Elettra, and Diamond Light Source (DLS) to answer this need for the soft X-ray regim

the challenges at high brilliance Light Sources such as new-generation Synchrotrons and Free Electron Lasers. Typical requirements for detector systems at these sources are high frame rates, large dynamic range, single-photon counting capability with low probability of false positives, high quantum efficiency, and (multi)-mega-pixel arrangements. PERCIVAL is a monolithic active pixel sensor, based on CMOS technology. It is designed for the soft X-ray regime and, therefore, it is post-processed in order to achieve high quantum efficiency in its primary energy range (250 eV to 1 keV). This work will report on the latest experimental results on charge 1Corresponding author.