Laboratory Testing of a Radiation Hardened 2D Imaging Anode for Charged Particle Spectrometry

A novel new approach to ultra-low size, weight, and power (SWaP) 2D imaging spectrometry has been developed by technical staff at the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Intelligence and Space Research Division. Not only has this system been designed to meet the low SWaP requirements for small spacecraft, but it has also been designed with radiation hardness in mind. This innovative approach to implementing a micro-channel plate (MCP) and cross delay (XCL) anode enables space missions with highly constrained requirements to include a high resolution 2D imaging spectrometer that supports event rates up to 100 kHz. In addition to enabling CubeSat class satellites, this system is designed to support missions that pass through the Earth's radiation belts, subjecting the system to highly dynamic and energetic trapped charged particle populations. This has been a problematic issue for the CubeSat class scientific community, which typically excludes CubeSats from the ability to continually pass though and explore the Earth's radiation belts and limits their use to more benign radiation environments. The use of this new approach will enable CubeSat class satellites to implement spectrometry instruments, allowing a greater range of the scientific community to have access to 2D imaging spectrometers even in applications where resources and budget is limited. This design is scheduled to fly on the Experiment for Space Radiation Analysis (ESRA) CubeSat mission to GTO and the Autonomous Ion Mass Spectrometer Sentry (AIMSS) to the International Space Station. Until now, this system has been in the early design phase and has been presented as a concept. Now, we present the results of ion beam laboratory testing results using an 8 keV proton beam. We demonstrate end-to-end functionality of the 2D imaging system by comparison with commercial electronics. Specifically, the imaging anode resolution is characterized at this ion energy as a function of spatial resolution using a calibration mask. We also validate the counting algorithm and overall system gain by comparison with a calibrated ion beam characterization tool.