Amorphous silicon-based microchannel plate detectors with high multiplication gain

TL;DR

This paper introduces amorphous silicon-based microchannel plates (AMCPs) fabricated via plasma deposition and reactive ion etching, achieving high aspect ratios and promising high multiplication gains for high-resolution detectors.

Contribution

It presents a novel fabrication process for AMCPs with enhanced aspect ratios, aiming to overcome limitations of conventional MCPs and improve detector performance.

Findings

Successful fabrication of AMCPs with increased aspect ratios

Potential for very high gain values based on fabrication results

First demonstration of AMCP devices with outlook on performance

Abstract

With their fast response time and a spatial resolution in the range of a few microns, microchannel plates (MCPs) are a prominent choice for the development of detectors with highest resolution standards. Amorphous silicon-based microchannel plates (AMCPs) aim at overcoming the fabrication drawbacks of conventional MCPs and the long dead time of their individual channels. AMCPs are fabricated via plasma deposition and dry reactive ion etching. Using a state-of-the-art dry reactive ion etching process, the aspect ratio, so far limited to a value of 14, could be considerably enhanced with a potential for very high gain values. We show first fabricated AMCP devices and provide an outlook for gain values to be expected based on the fabrication results.