A system of two microchannel-plate detectors has been successfully implemented for tracking projectile-fragmentation beams. The detectors provide interaction positions, angles, and arrival times of ions at the reaction target. The current design is an adaptation of an assembly used for low-energy beams (∼1.4 MeV/nucleon). In order to improve resolution in tracking high-energy heavy-ion beams, the magnetic field strength between the secondary-electron accelerating foil and the microchannel plate had to be increased substantially. Results from an experiment using a 37-MeV/nucleon 56Ni beam show that the tracking system can achieve sub-nanosecond timing resolution and a position resolution of ∼1 mm for beam intensities up to 5×105 pps.
@article{arxiv.1309.2745,
title = {Tracking rare-isotope beams with microchannel plates},
author = {A. M. Rogers and A. Sanetullaev and W. G. Lynch and M. B. Tsang and J. Lee and D. Bazin and D. Coupland and V. Henzl and D. Henzlova and M. Kilburn and M. S. Wallace and M. Youngs and F. Delaunay and M. Famiano and D. Shapira and K. L. Jones and K. T. Schmitt and Z. Y. Sun},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1309.2745},
year = {2013}
}