Development of a MicroStrip Gas Chamber as a Time-Resolved Area Detector

• Published in: Journal of synchrotron radiation Vol. 5; no. 3; pp. 256 - 262
• Main Authors: Tanimori, Toru, Aoki, Shunsuke, Nishi, Yuji, Ochi, Atsuhiko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 5 Abbey Square, Chester, Cheshire CH1 2HU, England International Union of Crystallography 01.05.1998
• Subjects: area detectors; microstrip gas chambers (MSGCs); time-resolved studies
• ISSN: 1600-5775; 0909-0495; 1600-5775
• DOI: 10.1107/S0909049598000776

A two‐dimensional microstrip gas chamber (MSGC) has been developed with a 10 cm‐square detection area and an ultrafast read‐out system. The MSGC was made using multi‐chip module (MCM) technology, and has a very thin substrate of 17 µm and many anodes and back strips, both with 200 µm pitches. The new read‐out system, in which the hit addresses of the electrodes were sequentially encoded to the hit positions by a synchronous clock, handles data rates of up to 107 events s−1 from MSGCs. This enables the acquisition of fast and sequential digital images. Furthermore, since the MSGC is a real photon‐counting detector, the timing of the photons, to an accuracy of a few tens of nanoseconds, and energy can be recorded. Here, the performance of the MSGC system as a real‐time area detector is reported, and the abilities of this system are discussed.