Experiences with CCD detectors on a home X-ray source

Charged-coupled device (CCD) detectors have been widely accepted as detectors for collecting X-ray diffraction images. The CCD detector offers a sensitive detection system well suited for diffraction analysis and, compared with other detectors on the market, a relatively rapid system for read-out of the collected image. The two predominant markets for the CCD detector have been those in which relatively short exposure times are used, i.e. small-molecule X-ray diffraction and large-molecule crystallography at high-intensity synchrotron sources. CCD detectors have not been commonly used on rotating-anode X-ray sources for large-molecule crystallography. Comparison of the performance of the CCD detectors with commercially available image-plate detectors shows that the CCD detectors function in a similar fashion to image-plate-based detectors.