A high sensitivity imaging detector for the study of the formation of ( anti ) hydrogen

AEGIS (Antimatter Experiment, Gravity, Interferometry and Spectroscopy) is an experiment under development at CERN which will measure earth’s gravitational force on antimatter. This will be done by creating a horizontal pulsed beam of low energy antihydrogen, an atom consisting of an antiproton and a positron. The experiment will measure the vertical deflection of the beam through which it is possible to calculate the gravitational constant for antimatter. To characterise the production process in the current state of the experiment it is necessary to develop an imaging detector for single excited hydrogen atoms. This thesis covers the design phase of that detector and includes studies and tests of detector components. Following literature studies, tests and having discarded several potential designs, a baseline design was chosen. The suggested detector will contain a set of ionising rings followed by an electron multiplying microchannel plate, a light emitting phosphor screen, a lens system and finally a CCD camera for readout. The detector will be able to detect single hydrogen atoms, measure their time of flight as well as being able to image electron plasmas and measure the time of flight of the initial particles in such a plasma. Tests were made to determine the behaviour of microchannel plates at the low temperatures used in the experiment. Especially, the resistance and multiplication factor of the microchannel plates have been measured at temperatures down to 14 K.