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 <10 mm resolution with a 32 mm cross-strip anode detector using low microchannel plate gain (∼106). 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.