A next generation, high speed detector for synchrotron radiation research

A high-speed, one-dimensional detector array for electrons and UV/X-ray photons has been developed. The detector is capable of handling the high countrates encountered in at third generation synchrotron radiation sources and is free from nonlinearity problems present in charge coupled device (CCD) detectors. Electrons are counted by a configuration of microchannel plates, an array of charge collection electrodes, and custom-designed integrated circuits (IC) assembled on a ceramic hybrid. The charges are collected on 768 strips with a 48 μm pitch that are wire-bonded to 6 pairs of signal processing ICs. Each front-end IC has 128 channels of amplifiers (peaking time 25 ns) and discriminators. The pulse-pair resolution is 50 ns leading to a maximum linear countrate/channel of 2 MHz. The second, custom-designed IC features 24-b buffered counters and a serial link for the transfer of commands and data. A possible deadtime-less readout of all channels in 150 μs opens the door to time resolved experiments. The complete detector system includes the high-voltage power supply, a field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based data acquisition system, and supporting software. Special care has been taken to insure reliable operation in an ultra-high vacuum environment. The detector architecture and design is described and measured performance characteristics such as spatial resolution and count-rate linearity are presented.