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

Sammanfattning: AEGIS (Antimatter Experiment, Gravity, Interferometry and Spectroscopy) isan experiment under development at CERN which will measure earth's gravitationalforce on antimatter. This will be done by creating a horizontal pulsedbeam of low energy antihydrogen, an atom consisting of an antiproton anda positron. The experiment will measure the vertical de ection of the beamthrough which it is possible to calculate the gravitational constant for antimatter.To characterise the production process in the current state of the experimentit is necessary to develop an imaging detector for single excited hydrogenatoms. This thesis covers the design phase of that detector and includes studiesand tests of detector components. Following literature studies, tests and havingdiscarded several potential designs, a baseline design was chosen. The suggesteddetector will contain a set of ionising rings followed by an electron multiplyingmicrochannel plate, a light emitting phosphor screen, a lens system and nallya CCD camera for readout. The detector will be able to detect single hydrogenatoms, measure their time of ight as well as being able to image electronplasmas and measure the time of ight of the initial particles in such a plasma.Tests were made to determine the behaviour of microchannel plates at the lowtemperatures used in the experiment. Especially, the resistance and multiplicationfactor of the microchannel plates have been measured at temperaturesdown to 14 K.