Charge integrating type position-sensitive proportional chamber for time-resolved measurements using intense X-ray sources

A position-sensitive detecting system for time-resolved diffraction measurements with very intensive X-ray sources has been developed. It consists of a charge integrating type gas-filled detector, multichannel analog multiplexers, a signal processor and a memory (120 ch.×128 phases×24 bits). The detector is 120 mm long in effective length by 10 mm×10 mm in cross section with a single anode of 20 μm diameter. One of the cathode planes consists of 120 cathode strips with a pitch of 1 mm. The spatial resolution is equal to the pitch under a certain detector current limit. The gas gain is adjustable to an appropriate value according to the X-ray intensity range of interest. For experiments with 8 keV X-ray sources, maximum absorption rates of 9×10⁷ photons/s·mm with low applied voltage and minimum absorption rates of about 3 photons/s·mm with high applied voltage can be achieved. This system was applied to a time-resolved X-ray diffraction study on frog muscle using a synchrotron radiation source at the Photon Factory and we could collect diffraction patterns with a time resolution of 10 ms and only 10 stimulations.