A two-dimensional detector for pump-and-probe and time resolved experiments

We present a new bidimensional detector setup, based on cross delay line technology, specifically developed for time resolved experiments and particularly suited to work in conjunction with pump-and-probe systems. Thanks to the particular architecture of the acquisition electronics, the detector is able to correlate each event with the time it occurred in a way which preserves the picoseconds time resolution of pump-and-probe techniques and, more generally, can perform time resolved acquisition in the nanosecond or picoseconds scale. The acquisition setup count rate, up to more than 4 Mcounts/s in time resolved mode, exceeds the performances of the best two-dimensional detectors working in counting mode presently available on electron analysers. First experimental results, obtained both on bench tests and in UHV conditions, where the detector has been mounted on an electron analyser, confirm the validity of the approach and show the potentiality of time resolved acquisition applied to electron spectroscopy analysis. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.