Microchannel plate cross-strip detectors with high spatial and temporal resolution

The cross-strip imaging readout employs charge division, and centroiding, of microchannel plate charge signals detected on two orthogonal layers of sense strips to encode event X-Y positions and times. We have developed cross-strip detectors and fully parallel channel position encoding electronics. The front-end amplifiers utilize two 32-channel pre-amplifier ASICs that send signals to a full 64-channel 60 MHz ADC circuit followed by a FPGA event-processing board. Tests with a software Finite Impulse Response filter and centroiding algorithm demonstrate 10mm resolution with a 32mm cross-strip anode detector using low microchannel plate gain (similar to 10(6)). The self-triggered event timing accuracy is 750 ps, and the system is capable of encoding photons at >1 MHz in combination with firmware-based FPGA centroiding algorithms. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.