Microchannel plate position read-out system using field programmable gate arrays

This article describes a technique that was developed to register particle events from a microchannel plate (MCP) used as the position sensitive detector within an electron spectrograph instrument. The MCP/amplification section is composed of 2 Z-stack MCP modules, an anode pattern connected to a passive delay line, and associated amplification circuitry. The digital output pulses from the amplification circuit are fed into a decoding architecture composed of delay chains integrated inside a field programmable gate array. Test results of the read-out system with delay line simulated input signals, have shown a good response with less than 1 error per 108 particle incident events. Initial tests with a MCP delay line anode have verified this technique and can be used to detect electron positions.