A 2D photon-counting X-ray detector system with 1.4 kHz frame rate and 55 µm spatial resolution has been developed and commissionned on ESRF beamlines. The system called MAXIPIX (Multichip Area X-ray detector based on a photon-counting PIXel array) consists of a detector module implementing up to five MEDIPIX-2 or TIMEPIX photon-counting readout chips, a custom readout interface board and a Linux acquisition workstation. The detector module readout time is 290 microseconds, allowing the system to achieve sustained frame rates of 280 Hz to 1400 Hz depending on the number of connected chips. An effective time resolution of 60 ns was measured using the ESRF pulsed modes and a TIMEPIX module. The system architecture and characteristics are presented, as well as a summary of its applications on ESRF beamlines.

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A new hybrid imaging detector is described that is being developed for the next generation adaptive optics (AO) wavefront sensors. The detector consists of proximity focused microchannel plates (MCPs) read out by pixelated CMOS application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips developed at CERN ("Medipix2"). Each Medipix2 pixel has an amplifier, lower and upper charge discriminators, and a 14-bit counter. The 256 x 256 array can be read out noiselessly (photon counting) in 286 µs. The Medipix2 is buttable on 3 sides to produce 512 x (n*256) pixel devices. The readout can be electronically shuttered down to a temporal window of a few microseconds with an accuracy of 10 ns. Good quantum efficiencies can be achieved from the x-ray (open faced with opaque photocathodes) to the optical (sealed tube with multialkali or GaAs photocathode).

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