High-Sensitivity and Long-Life Microchannel Plate Processed by Atomic Layer Deposition

High-Sensitivity and Long-Life Microchannel Plate Processed by Atomic Layer Deposition

Citation

Cao, W., Zhu, B., Bai, X., Xu, P., Wang, B., Qin, J., Gou, Y., Lei, F., Liu, B., Guo, J., Zhu, J., & Bai, Y. (2019). High-Sensitivity and Long-Life Microchannel Plate Processed by Atomic Layer Deposition. Nano Express, 11. https://doi.org/10.1186/s11671-019-2983-1 

  • Microchannel plate (MCP)
  • Atomic layer deposition (ALD)
  • Thin film
  • High stability
  • Long lifetime 

Brief

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) can be used to coat the inside of a microchannel plate (MCP) with Al2O3 to improve the sensitivity and lifetime of the MCP. 

Summary

This 2019 article in NANO EXPRESS, "High-Sensitivity and Long-Life Microchannel Plate Processed by Atomic Layer Deposition" by Weiwei Cao, Bingli Zhu, Xiaohong Bai, Peng Xu, Bo Wang, Junjun Qin, Yongsheng Gou, Fanpu Lei, Baiyu Liu, Junjiang Guo, Jingping Zhu, and Yonglin Bai, details the use of atomic layer deposition (ALD) as a post-processing technique to improve traditional microchannel plates (MCPs).

  • Traditional MCPs have several drawbacks, including:
  1. High-noise chemical etching leading to increased noise factors.
  2. Vacuum baking and electron scrubbing leading to surface element variation and reduced extracted charge/gain.
  3. The inability to independently adjust electrical resistance and secondary electron emission properties.
  • ALD can improve upon these drawbacks by depositing a conductive layer and secondary electron emission (SEE) layer inside the MCP channels.
  • ALD is advantageous for MCP post-processing because:
  1. It can deposit high SEE materials, such as Al(_2)O(_3), which can improve the gain of the MCP.
  2. It can fill nanoscale holes, improving surface roughness and increasing the lifetime of the MCP.
  • The authors found that using an extending precursor model for ALD deposition led to a more uniform coating than a stop flow model.
  • An 8 nm coating of Al(_2)O(_3) was optimal and resulted in a five-fold increase in output current compared to traditional MCPs.
  • ALD-MCPs showed better lifetime performance compared to traditional MCPs after high power illumination testing.

 Origin: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s11671-019-2983-1

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