Fabrication of a bulk conductive glass microchannel plate

Abstract

Extension of Microchannel Plate (MCP) to a bulk conductive substrate was considered to be an effective approach to eliminate ion feedback problem, and a vanadium iron lead phosphate glass had been identified can be tailored to have appropriate volume conductivity and suitable for MCP fabrication. In this paper, a new reformulated vanadium iron lead alumina phosphate glass was used to fabricate a bulk conductive glass MCP, the fabrication process is in the same way as the conventional lead silicate glass MCP fabrication, but in the absence of a hydrogen firing treatment, although it was succeed in fabricating some experimental samples of 25mm diameter full active area MCP with 10μm pore diameter and 40:1~60:1 length to diameter ratio, the experimental sample also demonstrated its bulk conductivity and certain secondary electron emission property, but its gain is very low, especially its mechanical strength is insufficient. The physical and chemical properties of this vanadium iron lead alumina phosphate glass, and the performance and behavior of this glass during the bulk conductive glass MCP fabrication process, as well as its experimental sample test results were detail described.