FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF LARGE-AREA MICRO-CHANNEL PLATES FOR A BROAD RANGE OF COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS
- Incom Inc.
- UC Berekely, SSL
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- U of Chicago
- University of Chicago
a) Purpose of the Research: The purpose of this program was to advance the development of 203mm square micro-channel plates (MCPs) initially conceived as an enabling component of the Large-Area Picosecond Photo-Detector (LAPPD). The Large-Area Picosecond Photo-Detector is a low-cost, large-area photodetector, capable of high spatial and temporal resolution, intended for high energy and nuclear physics applications. A key component of LAPPD are a chevron pair of “ALD-GCA-MCPs” fabricated using Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) to apply resistive and emissive coatings to a bare Glass Capillary Array (GCA) substrate. The purpose of this program included development of glass substrate materials selected for improved thermal and electrical characteristics, greater durability, and lower dark current, and to improve the space and time resolution performance of LAPPD by reducing the pore size of the large-area MCPs from 20 µm to 10 µm as well as to improve ALD emissive layer coatings for enhanced gain. b) Brief Description of the Research Carried Out: Five areas of technical advancement were addressed: (1) use of high-resistance alkali-free glasses in the construction of the ALD-GCA-MCPs; 2) development of a new fiber drawing process that enables fabrication of large-area ALD-GCA-MCPs with pore size of 10 µm and smaller; (3) optimization of the process for fusing capillary fibers into large-volume blocks suitable for high volume, low cost production; (4) developing processes for finishing GCAs (slice, grind polish and cleaning, testing) prior to ALD coating, and (5) developing high-yield ALD coating methods for improved gain. This program spawned additional, separately funded ALD programs to develop new secondary emissive (SEE) coatings and to minimize the thermal coefficient of resistance (TCR) of ALD-GCA-MCPs. c) Research Findings: Methods were developed for fabricating large-area micro-channel plates (MCPs) using a preferred alkali-free substrate glass having pore diameters ≤10 μm for improved space and time resolution. Elimination of alkalis from the glass composition provides greater long-term stability in ALD-GCA-MCP performance, lower dark current (MCP noise), and options for higher operating temperature. Performances achieved for the ALD-GCA-MCPs developed included: larger size, more mechanically robust, having high stable gains (>1x104 for single and >1x107 for a chevron pair configuration, at 1000V/MCP), with low background (< 0.05 cts/s/cm2), improved temperature tolerance, and 3x lower gamma-ray sensitivity when compared to conventional lead oxide based MPCs. d) Potential Applications of the Research: ALD-GCA-MCPs developed under this program, combined with the low-cost/large-area LAPPD photodetector platform will benefit high energy physics (HEP) detector applications such as water Cherenkov counters and high-resolution sampling calorimeters, and are relevant for high performance applications such as vertex separation and particle identification in time-of-flight measurements at high-luminosity colliders such as the LHC, RHIC, and future lepton colliders, and the reduction of combinatorial photon background in rare kaon-decay experiments. It will also benefit commercial applications such as detectors for mass spectrometers, PET scanners, and homeland security cargo/vehicle neutron scanners.
- Research Organization:
- Incom, Inc., Charlton, MA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Engineering & Technology. Office of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Programs
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0011262
- OSTI ID:
- 1574825
- Type / Phase:
- SBIR (Phase IIA)
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-Incom-SC0011262
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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