Developments of optical imaging capillary plate gas detector

An optical imaging capillary plate (CP) gas detector has been successfully developed for a gas mixture of Ar+CF4. Gas gains of up to 104 can be achieved with a single CP. Scintillation light simultaneously emitted during the development of electron avalanches can be observed using a photomultiplier tube (PMT) and optical imaging system which consists of a CP gas detector and a cooled CCD camera coupled to lens optics. The energy resolutions obtained for the charge signal and the light signal were 22% and 24% for 10 keV X-rays, respectively. Using the optical imaging system, clearer images of X-rays have been obtained with the gas mixture. Successful operation with this gas mixture has allowed us to realise a novel-imaging device with CP for X-ray imaging, cold neutron imaging, medical imaging, and cellular function analysis.