Study on Silicon Microchannel Plate Image Intensifier

Microchannel plate (MCP) is an image intensifier widely used for detecting and imaging of the electrons, ions, UV radiation, and soft X-ray fluxes. The traditional preparation of MCP is a process of glass fiber drawing and hydrogen reduction. A new method for fabricating MCP was proposed and studied. A silicon MCP was prepared based on bulk-micromachining technology, dry etching technology and electrochemical process respectively. In dry etching, a Si-MCP with 15-30 aspect ratio of the microchannel, 6~20 μm dimension of pore, 4~8 μm space were prepared by Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP). The electron gain for the sample of aspect ratio of 16 was about 102. In wet process, both p-type and n-type silicon was selected as the substrate for MCP. The electrochemical mechanism of silicon anisotropy etching were investigated and discussed. The results shows that the high aspect ratio of silicon microchannel arrays can be made by both dry and wet etching processes. The electrochemical process for silicon microchannel arrays has lower cost than ICP process.