A low-energy particle experiment for both ion and electron measurements using a single microchannel plate detector

Abstract We have developed a low-energy particle experiment that alternately measure ions and electrons in space. The ability to switch between ion and electron measurements is achieved by simply adding ultra-thin carbon foil and positive and negative outputs to a conventional top-hat electrostatic analyzer and a high-voltage power supply, respectively. The advantage of this experiment is that it can perform both ion and electron measurements using only one MCP detector for electrons, since it detects secondary electrons emitted from the carbon foil. For the SS520-3 sounding rocket program, we prepared two identical energy analyzers, one for ions and the other for electrons to demonstrate this technique. Laboratory tests confirmed that the performance of the two analyzers was comparable to that of conventional analyzers for ion and electrons. The SS520-3 rocket experiment in the high latitude auroral region yielded observations that captured typical features of ions and electrons, which were similar to previous observations.