Superconducting camera
The superconducting camera (SCAM) is a camera for the detection of individual photons , developed by ESA . It consists of Josephson contacts that are operated at a temperature of 0.3 Kelvin .
In contrast to charge-coupled devices, it can also detect the wavelength of incident photons.
The number of electrons released by an incident photon is proportional to its energy. This is around 18,000 electrons per electron volt, which enables the wavelength of the registered photon to be determined. For comparison, only one electron is released in a CCD per detected photon.