Experimental investigation on silicon microchannel plate electron multiplier

Abstract

A Silicon microchannel arrays with the very high aspect ratio was prepared by the photo-assisted electrochemical etching process. The mechanism of silicon anisotropy etching, the process parameters, the inducing pit arrays and the channel morphology were investigated, and the condition of etching current density for steady microchannel growth was discussed. The continuous SiO2 thin film dynode was fabricated by LPCVD process. The insulation, conductive and electron emission layer of the dynodes were studied and prepared. We obtained the samples of silicon microchannel plate with 25 mm of the plate diameter, 4-6 μm of channel side size, 1-2 μm of the channel space, more than 40 of aspect ratio, 7° channel bias angle, and 165 of the electron gain at 680V working voltage. The experimental study on silicon microchannel plate indicates that the process of Silicon microchannel plate in this paper is feasible.