Tailor‐Made 3D‐Nanoprinted Microchannel Plate Detector Functionalized by Atomic Layer Deposition Showing Electron Multiplication

ABSTRACT With the establishment of two‐photon polymerization in additive manufacturing, the precise fabrication of arbitrarily shaped 3D features has become possible on the microscopic and even on the nanometric scale. The unsurpassed design freedom of this technique enables wide‐ranging applications across multiple research areas, such as microfluidics, photonics, life science, and micro‐electromechanical systems. Herein, the fabrication of a tailor‐made microchannel plate (MCP) generated by 3D‐nanoprinting (3DN) based on two‐photon polymerization is explored. A workflow for the 3DN‐MCP scaffold fabrication and subsequent functionalization by atomic layer deposition is presented. First strategies for print time reduction are proposed that allow for a 65% faster scaffold production, currently at the cost of microchannel shape accuracy. For the proof‐of‐concept experiment, a picoampere current is supplied by a carbon‐nanotube‐based field emitter to the 3DN‐MCP. An amplification factor in the order of 10 2 is measured for the 3DN‐MCP, which can likely be enhanced by microchannel dimension adjustments and further tuning of the surface coatings’ electrical properties in the future. Based on this study, innovative 3DN‐MCP designs may be explored, as the developed 3DN processing route is not limited to the conventional microchannel shape of glass‐based MCPs.