SBIR PHASE I: Microporous Alumina Microchannel Plates

微通道板 (MCP) 对于科学、医学和工业中的高增益成像和检测应用至关重要。它们对入射带电粒子和 UV/X 射线粒子具有卓越的时间分辨率，可在高磁场中工作，对于科学仪器中的许多粒子检测应用（例如闪烁纤维粒子跟踪器）至关重要。然而，大多数现有的 MCP 都是由活性玻璃制成的，其增益会随着从 MCP 收集的单位面积累积电荷而迅速下降。此外，MCP价格昂贵，可用区域有限，具有显着的空间不均匀性，并且容易受到辐射损伤。 我们建议通过使用阳极氧化铝板作为 MCP 的基础来克服其中的许多困难。当在受控阳极氧化下形成时，无定形氧化铝包含开放的、密集的、直的微孔，其方向垂直于表面，具有适合微通道增益的长径比。纯氧化铝具有足够的二次发射增益，使得孔可以充当增益通道，而无需活化或污染材料。我们预计，这种陶瓷材料将以非常低的成本具有比玻璃 MCP 更好的稳定性和寿命特性，并具有大 MCP 面积的潜力。微孔MCP基质比现有MCP具有更好的空间分辨率和空间均匀性，并且具有高抗辐射性。增益稳定性和长寿命将使快速、紧凑的 MCP 技术能够在各种真空电子放大应用中得到更广泛的应用。 在第一阶段，我们建议通过阳极氧化制造原型非晶氧化铝 MCP，并测量增益、增益稳定性和空间特性。 如果成功，微/纳米通道板（M/NCP）将比当前的 MCP 具有更长的使用寿命，并且可以实现超快、门控、紧凑、高磁场、抗辐射 MCP 光电倍增管（PMT）； (2) 具有亚微米空间分辨率的长寿命图像增强器/转换器； (3)平板真空磷光体显示器； (4) 具有高增益和亚微米空间分辨率的成像带电粒子/X射线探测器。

Microchannel plates (MCP) are essential for high gain imaging and detection applications in science, medicine, and industry. They have superior temporal resolution for incident charged and UV/x-ray particles, operate in high magnetic fields, and are essential for many particle detection applications in scientific instrumentation, such as scintillating fiber particle trackers. However, most existing MCP are fabricated from activated glass and suffer from a gain that falls rapidly with the cumulative charge per area collected from the MCP. Furthermore, MCP are expensive, available in limited areas, have significant spatial non-uniformities, and radiation damage readily. We propose to overcome many of these difficulties by using anodized aluminum plates as the basis of an MCP. When formed under controlled anodization, amorphous alumina contains open, densely packed, straight micropores, oriented perpendicular to the surface, with a length to diameter ratio appropriate for microchannel gain. Pure alumina has a sufficient secondary emission gain so that the pores can serve as gain channels, without activation, or contaminating materials. We anticipate that this ceramic material will have superior stability and lifetime properties to those of glass MCP, at very low cost, with the potential of large MCP areas. The microporous MCP matrix could result in much better spatial resolution and spatial uniformity than existing MCP, with high radiation resistance. The gain stability and long life will enable the fast, compact MCP technology to be used much more widely in a large variety of vacuum electronics amplification applications. In Phase I, we propose to fabricate prototype amorphous alumina MCP's by anodization, and measure gain, gain stability and spatial properties. If successful, micro/nanochannel plates (M/NCP) with a much longer operational life compared with current MCP would result, and could enable ultrafast, gated, compact, high magnetic field, radiation-hard MCP photomultipliers (PMT); (2) long lived image intensifiers/ converters with sub-micron spatial resolution; (3) flat panel vacuum phospher displays; (4) imaging charged particle/x-ray detectors with high gain and sub-micron spatial resolution.