Vacuum measuring system for channel electron multipliers

A system in which channel electron multipliers can be calibrated to be used as detectors of electrons or protons in space is described. The system consists of an electron gun built in a vacuum chamber and equipped with a control Faraday cup and a high impedance electrometer to measure electron fluxes. It contains an electron flux control with buffer amplifier, a proportional integration differentiation regulation unit, and a heating current power regulation. Detection efficiency dependency on the energy of the incident particles, the saturation that yields decreasing count rates at continuously increasing particle flux, or the statistical pulse height distribution giving information about well or restrictedly usuable multipliers can be measured. The optimum supply voltage of the multipliers at which small fluctuations do not cause any changes of the pulse height distribution, and the function count rates vs. supply voltage for selecting good or poor multipliers can also be determined.