A large area detector for x-ray applications

A large area detector for x-ray synchrotron applications has been developed. The front end of this device consist of a scintillator coupled to a fiber-optic taper. The fiber-optic taper is comprised of 4 smaller (70 mm x 70 mm) tapers fused together in a square matrix giving an active area of 140 mm x 140 mm. Each taper has a demagnification of 5.5 resulting in four small ends that are 12 mm diagonally across. The small ends of each taper are coupled to four microchannel-plate-based image intensifiers. The output from each image intensifier is focused onto a Charge Coupled Device (CCD) detector. The four CCDs are read out in parallel and are independently controlled. The image intensifiers also act as fast (20 ns) electronic shutters. The system is capable of displaying images in real time. Additionally, with independent control on the readout of each row of data from the CCD, the system is capable of performing high speed imaging through novel readout manipulation