Study of the Electric Field inside Microchannel Plate Multipliers

Electric field inside high gain microchannel plate multipliers was studied. The calculations were based directly on the solution of the Maxwell equations applied to the microchannel plate (MCP) rather than on the conventional lumped RC model. The results are important to explain the performance of MCP's, i) under a pulsed bias tension and, ii) at high rate conditions. The results were tested experimentally and a new method of MCP operation free from the positive ion feedback was demonstrated.