Development of a compact E×B microchannel plate detector for beam imaging

A beam imaging detector was developed by coupling a multi-strip anode with delay line readout to an E×B microchannel plate (MCP) detector. This detector is capable of measuring the incident position of the beam particles in one-dimension. To assess the spatial resolution, the detector was illuminated by an α-source with an intervening mask that consists of a series of precisely-machined slits. The measured spatial resolution was 520μm FWHM, which was improved to 413μm FWHM by performing an FFT of the signals, rejecting spurious signals on the delay line, and requiring a minimum signal amplitude. This measured spatial resolution of 413μm FWHM corresponds to an intrinsic resolution of 334μm FWHM when the effect of the finite slit width is de-convoluted. To understand the measured resolution, the performance of the detector is simulated with the ion-trajectory code SIMION.