Microchannel plate life testing for UV spectroscopy instruments

摘要

The Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) UV Spectrograph (EMUS) is a far ultraviolet (102 nm to 170 nm) imaging spectrograph for characterization of the Martian exosphere and thermosphere. Imaging is accomplished by a photon counting open-face microchannel plate (MCP) detector using a cross delay line (XDL) readout. An MCP gain stabilization ("scrub") followed by lifetime spectral line burn-in simulation has been completed on a bare MCP detector at SSL. Gain and sensitivity stability of better than 7% has been demonstrated for total dose of 2.5 × 10~(12) photons cm~(-2) (2 C · cm~(-2)) at 5.5 kHz mm~(-2) counting rates, validating the efficacy of an initial low gain full-field scrub.