An ultra-high-speed detector for synchrotron radiation research

An ultra high-speed, one-dimensional multi-channel detector for electrons and soft x-ray photons has been developed to permit full utilization of fluxes from third- and fourth-generation synchrotron radiation sources. The detector has 768 channels of buffered counters with a maximum linear countrate per channel exceeding 2 MHz. With an overall countrate of similar to2 GHz, this detector is approximately 100 times faster than any other presently available. The 48 mum spacing from channel to channel also provides excellent spatial resolution, and thus also excellent energy resolution with dispersive spectrometers. This detector represents several improvements in reliability and ruggedness over an earlier prototype. The detector is capable of operating in a typical UHV environment and is presently installed in a Scienta electron analyzer at the ALS for testing and first data taking. A total countrate exceeding 1 GHz and a position resolution of about two channels have been experimentally demonstrated. It should be possible to read out all 768 channels in as little as 150 mus for time-resolved and pump-probe experiments.