Utilization of microchannel plates in X-ray crystallography

An X-ray detector using a microchannel plate (MCP) was developed and utilized in X-ray crystallography. The tests show that this detector is more sensitive than a system scintillator-film, and that the main problem of scintillator and film, namely the possibly small distance to the sample for intensity reasons, does not occur with an MCP which detects the different X-ray quanta and has practically no dark current. This advantage is particularly interesting for X-ray crystallography on hollow-charge where the excited shock wave is susceptible to destroy a detector in the immediate vicinity. It is shown that image processing methods allow a better evaluation of the information available in the diagrams. The weak intensity line K beta 200, which is not visible with the eye on the X-ray image, is represented with the help of a computer.