A
charged particle beam detection
system (10) that includes a
Faraday cup detector array (FCDA) for position-sensitive
charged particle beam detection is described. The FCDA is combined with an electronic
multiplexing unit (MUX) (2) that allows collecting and intgrating the charge deposited in the array, and simultaneously reading out the same. The
duty cycle for collecting the ions is greater than 98%. This
multiplexing (2) is achieved by collecting the charge with a large number of small and electronically decoupled Faraday cups. Because Faraday cups collect the charge independent of their charge state, each cup is both a collector and an
integrator. The ability of the
Faraday cup to integrate the charge, in combination with the electronic
multiplexing unit (2), which reads out and empties the cups quickly compared to the charge integration time, provides the almost perfect
duty cycle for this position-sensitive
charged particle detector (10). The device (10) measures further absolute
ion currents, has a
wide dynamic range from 1.7 pA to 1.2 μA with a
crosstalk of less than 750:1. The integration of the electronic multiplexing unit (2) with the FCDA further allows reducing the number of feedthroughs that are needed to operate the
detector (10).