Novel large aperture EBCCD

Abstract

A novel large aperture electron bombardment charge coupled device (EBCCD) has been developed. The diameter of its photocathode is 10 cm and it is the first EBCCD with such a large aperture. Its gain shows good linearity as a function of applied voltage up to −12 kV, where the gain is 2400. The spatial resolution was measured using ladder pattern charts. It is better than 2 line pairs/mm, which corresponds to 3.5 times the CCD pixel size. The spatial resolution was also measured with a copper foil pattern on a fluorescent screen irradiated with X-rays (14 and 18 keV) and a 60 keV gamma-ray from an americium source. The result was consistent with the measurement using ladder pattern charts. The output signal as a function of input light intensity shows better linearity than that of image intensifier tubes (IIT) as expected. We could detect cosmic rays passing through a scintillating fiber block and a plastic scintillator as a demonstration for a practical use in particle physics experiments. This kind of large aperture EBCCD can, for example, be used as an image sensor for a detector with a large number of readout channels and is expected to be additionally applied to other physics experiments.