Acquisition and processing of multiparametric information from a pixel matrix

This paper addresses the design of a system intended to readout multiparametric information from a matrix of pixels. The system presented here acquires the charge associated with the signal and provides a timing information from each pixel. Although it lends itself to a broad range of time-correlated imaging situations involving any kind of pixel matrices, the design constraints assumed here are particularly tailored to the application with pixels that sense the output charge distribution from a microchannel plate (MCP). The combination of a microchannel plate and a pixel matrix is an extremely versatile detector and the readout system must be able to fully exploit the intrinsically high position resolution and time accuracy featured by the MCP. The behavior of the readout system described in this paper is based upon advanced concepts to meet the above application requirements and is believed to provide a significant functional improvement over the conventional pixel systems.