effort during the third quarter of the contract was concentrated on fabrication and testing of the second submission of 10 engineering samples. in addition, tasks continued during the report period include: (1) achievement of uniform firepolishing of entire mcp input surface by using a mesh heater structure, (2) improved mcp surface quality by optimizing prepolish condition of mcp's and (3) employment of thicker laquer films to improve al2o3 quality. the new varian evaporator was completed and used to perform all al2o3 evaporations to achieve better thickness control, a dual shutter system was employed. several flood gun designs were tested in the present engineering demountable testhead to achieve higher electron density for improved viewing of al2o3 film defects. several mcp's were coated with very thick al2o3 films to study al2o3 film defects. the bakeable demountable test system was completely assembled and is now undergoing heat and pressure tests. (author)