The next major advance in data collection technology was the CCD detector in the early 1990's. This developement allowed the collection of X-ray data with a method similar to earlier photographic methods with the ability to collect large amounts of data quickly, but without the attendant human intervention of film work.

The CCD detector consists of a light sensitive phosphor which converts the diffracted X-ray photons to visible light, a fiber optic taper which reduces the image down to the size of the CCD chip which converts the light photons to electrons that are trapped in a two dimensional capacitor array (pixels) and converted by an amplifier to digitized voltages.