Development of a microchannel plate based gated x-ray imager for imaging and spectroscopy experiments on z

Summary form only given. This paper describes the development of a microchannel plate (MCP)-based gated x-ray imager developed by National Security Technologies, LLC (NSTec) and Sandia National Laboratories over the past several years. The camera consists of a 40 mm × 40 mm MCP, coated with eight 4 mm wide microstrips. The camera is gated by sending subnanosecond high-voltage pulses across the striplines. We have performed an extensive characterization of the camera, the results of which we present here. The camera has an optical gate profile width (time resolution) as narrow as 150 ps and detector uniformity of better than 30% along the length of a strip, far superior than what has been achieved in previous designs. Reliability and reproducibility of the imager are also greatly enhanced. The spatial resolution is on the order of 40 microns for imaging applications and a dynamic range of between ~100 and ~1000. We also present results from a Monte Carlo simulation code developed by NSTec over the last several years. Agreement between the simulation results and the experimental measurements is very good.