Progress on the development of a single line of sight x-ray framing camera

Abstract

High-speed microstrip microchannel plate (MCP) x-ray framing cameras are a well established diagnostic for laser plasma experiments. Each frame acquired with these devices requires a separate image, and with most reasonable x-ray optics, a separate line of sight, causing potential parallax problems. Gated image tubes have a single line of sight capability, but the conventional designs have not been effectively extended to the short gating times of the microstrip-line MCP camera. A hybrid camera combining image tube and microstrip-line MCP technology has been under development at Lawrence Livermore National Lab in collaboration with University of Rochester Lab for Laser energetics, and KENTECH Instruments. The key feature of this single line of sight hybrid image tube is a deflection assembly that continuously divides the electrons from a single photocathode x-ray image into a set of four electron images. Temporal gating of these images is carried out using a microstrip-line microchannel plate framing camera module positioned at the image plane of the electron tube. Characterization measurements performed using both x rays from a Manson source and from laser generated plasmas, will be presented. Some implementation improvements will be discussed.