Reduction Temperature-Dependent Nanoscale Morphological Transformation and Electrical Conductivity of Silicate Glass...

Lead silicate glasses are fundamental materials to a microchannel plate (MCP), which is a two dimensional array of a microscopic channel charge particle multiplier. Hydrogen reduction is the core stage to determine the electrical conductivity of lead silicate glass MCP multipliers. The nanoscale morphologies and microscopic potential distributions of silicate glass at different reduction temperatures were investigated via atomic force microscope (AFM) and Kelvin force microscopy (KFM). We found that the bulk resistance of MCPs ballooned exponentially with the spacing of conducting islands. Moreover, bulk resistance and the spacing of conducting islands both have the BiDoseResp trend dependence on the hydrogen reduction temperature. Elements composition and valence states of lead silicate glass were characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The results indicated that the conducting island was an assemblage of the Pb atom originated from the reduction of Pb²⁺ and Pb⁴⁺. Thus, this showed the important influence of the hydrogen temperature and nanoscale morphological transformation on modulating the physical effects of MCPs, and opened up new possibilities to characterize the nanoscale electronic performance of multiphase silicate glass.