Uses of microchannel plate intensified detectors for imaging applications in the X-ray, EUV and visible wavelength regions

The Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Photon Counting Detector (RALPCD) has been refined to meet project requirements for a flexible imaging arrangement with applications at X-ray, EUV and visible wavelengths. The basic detector design comprises commercially available high gain microchannel plate intensifiers fibre optically coupled to CID or CCD cameras, to form a modular detector arrangement with the appropriate RAL detection and centroiding software. Frames of data from the cameras are detected and centroided in a Transputer or C40 parallel processor array where correction algorithms use look up tables to produce pattern free images at high resolution. Data from completed applications are used to illustrate the performance and future advances are discussed.