
Dr David Hall
Senior Lecturer In Physical Sciences
Biography
Professional biography
David is a Senior Lecturer in Physical Sciences at the Open University and Director of the Centre for Electronic Imaging (CEI) which is a collaboration between the Open University and Teledyne e2v. Teledyne e2v are a world-leading technology company that offer space imaging solutions, including space-qualified imaging sensors, arrays and sub-systems for space science, ground astronomy and Earth observation, helping to solve the mysteries of the Universe and understand climate change on Earth.
David received an Honours Degree in Physics (MPhys) from Oxford University, UK, in 2006. Following his Masters, he completed his PhD on the impact of detection physics in X-ray CCD imagers and spectrometers from the Open University in 2010 in an industry-sponsored studentship with Teledyne e2v. Appointed as an e2v Research Fellow in 2010 and Lecturer in Physical Sciences in 2017, he has continued his research with the Centre for Electronic Imaging into the space radiation environment and its impact on space imaging and spectroscopy systems such as CCDs, being appointed as Director of the Centre for Electronic Imaging in January 2024, managing a grant portfolio of around £10M.
David has worked towards the ESA Gaia, Euclid and Athena missions, the ESA and Chinese Acadamy of Science SMILE mission, NASA's WFIRST mission, instrument background and graded-Z shielding, p-channel device technology and the fundamental physics of radiation damage in silicon and how this impacts the lattice. His research also focusses on the use of device-based simulations, including the modelling of CCDs and novel imaging techniques, alongside the simulation of instrument background, from XMM-Newton to ATHENA. David has developed collaborations with the Swiss Light Source at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) and the Diamond Light Source (UK) towards the development of applications for the Electron-Multiplying CCD in synchrotron-based research and medical imaging, developing other applications for technology and techniques originally designed for space science.
David is a member of the Discovery Advisory Committee for Science
(DACS), as well as the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships sifting and
interview panels.
A list of publications in print can be found on the Publications tab, which provides links to downloadable copies of all papers. Further information and bibliometrics are available through David's Google Scholar Profile.
If you are interested in any of David's research, publications or projects, or if you would like to collaborate in the future, please contact him at the email address on the left.
Research interests
Instrumentation development and study of the underlying physical processes for detectors in space science and synchrotron research:
- Radiation damage in silicon-based devices: the causes, the consequences and methods for removing and reducing the impact (experiment and modelling).
- Inter-disciplinary approaches to advancing understanding of traps and defects, leading inter-disciplinary research into first-principle simulations of, and methods to reduce, defects in silicon.
- Instrument background in silicon devices for space-science missions (simulation and measurement).
- Semiconductor device technology (n-channel and p-channel CCD, EM-CCD, SCD and CMOS).
- Soft X-ray detectors, detection techniques and data analysis algorithms.
- Hard X-ray detectors, detection using scintillators or direct detection and novel data analysis methods.
- X-ray detectors and detection techniques for synchrotron research (RIXS, X-ray crystallography).
- Novel imaging detectors and techniques, scale-space techniques for X-ray data.
Teaching interests
David has developed his experience in teaching at the Open University across a variety of areas. He has taken on the role as a "topic specialist" in a range of areas of the Open University "Practical Science" course in Physics and Astronomy, from NMR to Probing the Electron. He has also written course materials for the final project for students in the course, revolving around mathematical modelling through teamwork in distance learning.
David also worked as part of the team developing the OU's new Space Science Masters course, combining his research experience working on Gaia and teaching experience on the Practical Science and Research Skills Masters courses, providing students with a real-life research problem to solve and enabling them to contribute to the analysis of Gaia data alerts.
Alongside his work on the Space Science Masters, David has also been heavily involved in the presentation and production of the level 3 course on Electromagnetism, including the development of the next generation of the course.
Impact and engagement
As Director of the Centre for Electronic Imaging (CEI), David often collaborates with Teledyne e2v. This collaboration between academia and industry ensures that the research undertaken has real and tangible impact to UK industry. The collaboration agreements in place between Teledyne e2v and the Open University enable a much more in-depth study of the device physics than would otherwise be possible, bringing great benefits to space science and synchrotron applications.
David ran a very successful outreach project on the UKube-1 mission under funding from STFC's Science in Society scheme, reaching over 1,200 local school pupils in the first year of operation. The equipment and materials developed in this project are still being used in outreach activities in local schools, colleges and amateur interest groups, as well as for external visitors to the CEI laboratories.
External collaborations
David is working across a variety of projects in many collaborations in academia across the UK and Europe (e.g. MSSL, Durham, IoA Cambridge, ONERA, PSI), with industry (e.g. e2v, XCAM) and with the space agencies (e.g. ESA, UKSA). Alongside these European partnerships, David is also working with collaborators in the US such as those at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Publications
Journal Article
SMILE Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) CCD370 proton irradiation results (2024)
Soft X-ray performance of an optimised charge-coupled device for astronomy (2024)
Non-ionizing radiation effects in a soft X-ray CMOS image sensor (2024)
Impact of particle passage and focusing from micro-pore optics for radiation damage estimates (2024)
Euclid II. The VIS instrument (2024)
SMILE soft X-ray Imager flight model CCD370 pre-flight device characterisation (2023)
Impact of impurities in shielding material on simulations of instrument background in space (2023)
The CCD instrument background of the SMILE SXI (2023)
The Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) on the SMILE Mission (2023)
Mitigating the effects of particle background on the Athena Wide Field Imager (2022)
Understanding the evolution of radiation damage on the Gaia CCDs after 72 months at L2 (2022)
Effects of temperature anneal cycling on a cryogenically proton irradiated CCD (2021)
Proton-induced traps in electron multiplying charge-coupled devices (2021)
Enhanced simulations on the Athena/Wide Field Imager instrumental background (2021)
Faint objects in motion: the new frontier of high precision astrometry (2021)
Importance of charge capture in interphase regions during readout of charge-coupled devices (2018)
Development of in-situ trap characterisation techniques for EMCCDs (2018)
Soft X-ray radiation damage in EM-CCDs used for Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (2018)
The SMILE Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) CCD design and development (2018)
Mitigation strategies against radiation-induced background for space astronomy missions (2018)
Evolution and impact of defects in a p-channel CCD after cryogenic proton-irradiation (2017)
In situ trap properties in CCDs: the donor level of the silicon divacancy (2017)
Postirradiation behavior of p-channel charge-coupled devices irradiated at 153 K (2016)
Studying defects in the silicon lattice using CCDs (2014)
Development of EM-CCD-based X-ray detector for synchrotron applications (2014)
Determination of in situ trap properties in CCDs using a "single-trap pumping" technique (2014)
Simulations of charge transfer in Electron Multiplying Charge Coupled Devices (2014)
Vacancy-oxygen defects in silicon: the impact of isovalent doping (2014)
Developing a CCD camera with high spatial resolution for RIXS in the soft X-ray range (2013)
Phosphorous-vacancy-oxygen defects in silicon (2013)
Electron-multiplying CCDs for future soft X-ray spectrometers (2012)
The noise performance of electron-multiplying charge-coupled devices at X-ray energies (2012)
Modelling charge storage in Euclid CCD structures (2012)
Photon-counting imaging camera for high-resolution X-ray and γ-ray applications (2011)
Gaia spectroscopy: processing, performances and scientific returns (2010)
Space radiation environment effects on X-ray CCD background (2010)
High resolution x-ray and γ-ray imaging using a scintillator-coupled electron-multiplying CCD (2009)
Modelling instrument background for CCD x-ray spectrometers in space (2007)
Presentation / Conference
CMOS image sensors for x-ray interferometry (2024)
Tracking radiation damage of Euclid VIS detectors after 1 year in space (2024)
Assessing the suitability of CIS220 for low light astronomy (2024)
Non-ionising radiation effects in a soft X-ray CMOS image sensor (2024)
Short-term trap decay in a cryogenically irradiated charge-coupled device (2022)
Modelling charge transfer inefficiency in Gaia CCDs with in-flight and on-ground data (2022)
Calibrating and correcting charge transfer inefficiency in CCDs using Pyxel (2022)
Processing x-ray data on board the SMILE SXI (2020)
Gaia CCDs: charge transfer inefficiency measurements between five years of flight (2020)
Radiation damage testing status of the CCDs for the SMILE SXI (2020)
Development of a photon-counting near-fano-limited x-ray CMOS image sensor for THESEUS' SXI (2020)
Enhanced simulations on the ATHENA/WFI instrumental background (2020)
Reducing the Athena WFI charged particle background: results from Geant4 simulations (2020)
The silicon lattice defects in proton and gamma irradiated n-channel CCDs (2019)
C3TM: CEI CCD charge transfer model for radiation damage analysis and testing (2018)
VIS: the visible imager for Euclid (2018)
WFIRST coronagraph detector trap modeling results and improvements (2018)
Evaluation of the ATHENA/WFI instrumental background (2018)
Evolution of proton-induced defects in a cryogenically irradiated p-channel CCD (2017)
Validation of NIEL for >1MeV electrons in silicon using the CCD47-20 (2016)
Development of the X-ray camera for the OGRE sub-orbital rocket (2016)
Mapping radiation-induced defects in CCDs through space and time (2016)
Comparing simulations and test data of a radiation damaged CCD for the Euclid mission (2016)
VIS: the visible imager for Euclid (2016)
The effect of radiation-induced traps on the WFIRST coronagraph detectors (2016)
Electron multiplication CCD detector technology advancement for the WFIRST-AFTA coronagraph (2015)
Challenges in photon-starved space astronomy in a harsh radiation environment using CCDs (2015)
A global shutter CMOS image sensor for hyperspectral imaging (2015)
Initial results from a cryogenic proton irradiation of a p-channel CCD (2015)
VIS: the visible imager for Euclid (2014)
The Euclid VIS CCD detector design, development, and programme status (2014)
In situ trap parameter studies in CCDs for space applications (2014)
The relationship between pumped traps and signal loss in buried channel CCDs (2013)
Pixel-level modelling and verification for the EUCLID VIS CCD (2013)
Developing a high-resolution x-ray imager using electron-multiplying (EM) CCDs (2013)
Device modelling and model verification for the Euclid CCD273 detector (2012)
The use of CCDs and EM-CCDs for future soft x-ray spectrometers (2012)
Modelling charge transfer in a radiation damaged charge coupled device for Euclid (2012)
Compact CMOS camera demonstrator (C3D) for Ukube-1 (2011)
The use of EM-CCDs on high resolution soft x-ray spectrometers (2011)
Imaging and spectroscopy using a scintillator-coupled EMCCD (2008)
Simulating and reproducing instrument background for x-ray CCD spectrometers in space (2008)
Report
RVS Radiation Campaign 4 data III - Parameter Measurement (2014)
RVS Radiation Campaign 4 data II - Data Calibration (2014)
RVS Radiation Campaign 4 data: Initial assessment (2012)
Data preparation for the RVS tests in the 3rd Astrium Radiation Campaign (2010)
Thesis
Exploring the impact of detection physics in X-ray CCD imagers and spectrometers (2010)