Speaker
Dr
Jon Lapington
(University of Leicester)
Description
We describe a 256 channel microchannel plate-based multi-anode photomultiplier camera system with integrated electronics designed for picosecond photon timing applications at very high throughput. The system was designed primarily for high content applications in life sciences, such as high throughput fluorescence lifetime microscopy, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, and other time-resolved spectroscopies.
The 40 mm detector utilizes a small pore microchannel plate stack operating at a gain of 1e6 and optimized for high count rate. The multi-anode readout comprises a multilayer ceramic which provides detector body vacuum integrity and electrical feed-throughs for the integrated discrete pixel readout. The compact, modular electronics comprise: (i) a detector board which mates directly with the detector, (ii) 4 sets of in-line 64 channel preamplifier/discriminator and time-to-digital converter boards using CERN-developed ASIC technology, and (iii) a backplane and processor card with programmable digital processing capability and USB interface.
In the current system each of the 256 independent electronics channels addresses 2x2 pixel2 of the detector multi-anode 32 x 32 pixel2 format readout. The modular electronics design is specifically organized for expansion of the channel count to 1024 to eventually allow independent readout of single detector pixels.
We present measurements of component and system performance including event time resolution, channel crosstalk, detector and electronic count rate capabilities, and projected detector lifetime, and discuss possible detector modifications to enhance local count rate limitations and extend lifetime.
Preferred medium (Oral/poster)
oral
Author
Dr
Jon Lapington
(University of Leicester)
Co-author
Mr
Tom Conneely
(Photek Ltd.)
