Angular sensitivity of gated microchannel plate framing cameras

Abstract

Gated, microchannel-plate-based (MCP) framing cameras have been deployed worldwide for 0.2–9 keV x-ray imaging and spectroscopy of transient plasma phenomena. For a variety of spectroscopic and imaging applications, the angular sensitivity of MCPs must be known for correctly interpreting the data. We present systematic measurements of angular sensitivity at discrete relevant photon energies and arbitrary MCP gain. The results can been accurately predicted by using a simple two-dimensional approximation to the three-dimensional MCP geometry and by averaging over all possible photon ray paths.