Low-distortion resistive anodes for two-dimensional position-sensitive MCP systems.

Microchannel plates (MCPs) are frequently employed with resistive anodes to detect charged particles or photons and yield analog signals from which event positions can be decoded. We discuss an anode geometry devised by C.W. Gear that offers theoretically distortionless encoding of Cartesian event positions into pulse charge ratios. Electron beam images taken with such an anode are shown, and confirm the usefulness of the approach.