No Arabic abstract
The Argonne micro-channel plate photomultiplier tube (MCP-PMT) is an offshoot of the Large Area Pico-second Photo Detector (LAPPD) project, wherein mbox{6 $times$ 6 cm$^2$} sized detectors are made at Argonne National Laboratory. Measurements of the properties of these detectors, including gain, time and spatial resolution, dark count rates, cross-talk and sensitivity to magnetic fields are reported. In addition, possible applications of these devices in future neutrino and collider physics experiments are discussed.
Micro-channel plate (MCP)-based photodetectors are capable of picosecond level time resolution and sub-mm level position resolution, which makes them a perfect candidate for the next generation large area photodetectors. The large-area picosecond photodetector (LAPPD) collaboration is developing new techniques for making large-area photodetectors based on new MCP fabrication and functionalization methods. A small single tube processing system (SmSTPS) was constructed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) for developing scalable, cost-effective, glass-body, 6 cm x 6 cm, picosecond photodetectors based on MCPs functionalized by Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD). Recently, a number of fully processed and hermitically sealed prototypes made of MCPs with 20 micron pores have been fabricated. This is a significant milestone for the LAPPD project. These prototypes were characterized with a pulsed laser test facility. Without optimization, the prototypes have shown excellent results: The time resolution is ~57 ps for single photoelectron mode and ~15 ps for multi-photoelectron mode; the best position resolution is < 0.8 mm for large pulses. In this paper, the tube processing system, the detector assembly, experimental setup, data analysis and the key performance will be presented.
In order to develop a long-lifetime MCP-PMT under high rates of circumstance, we investigated the degradation of the quantum efficiency (QE) of PMTs with a multialkali photocathode. We found that not only positive ions, but also neutral residual gases would damage the photocathode resulting in an enhancement of the work function; their countermeasures were established in newly manufactured square-shaped MCP-PMTs with 4 or 4x4 multi-anodes. The performances of the PMTs were measured: QE was stable up to an integrated amount of anode output charge of 2-3 C/cm^2, while keeping other basic performances steady, such as the time resolution for single photons of ~40 ps, a photoelectron collection efficiency (CE) of 60%, a multiplication gain (G) of a few x 10^6, and dark counts of 20-300 Hz. The causes of QE degradation are discussed.
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) is proposed to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy using a 20 kiloton underground liquid scintillator detector (CD). One of the keys is the energy resolution of the CD to reach <3% at 1 MeV, where totally 15,000 MCP-PMT will be used. The optimization of the 20-inch MCP-PMT is very important for better detection efficiency and stable performance. In this work, we will show the study to optimize the MCP-PMT working configuration for charge measurement. Particularly, the quality of PMT signal is another key for high-precision neutrino experiments while most of these experiments are affected by the overshoot of PMT signal from the positive HV scheme. The overshoot coupled with positive HV which is troubling trigger, dead time and precise charge measurement, we have studied to control it to less than 1% of signal amplitude for a better physics measurement. In this article, on the one hand, the optimized HV divider ratio will be presented here to improve its collection efficiency; on the other hand, we will introduce the method to reduce the ratio of overshoot from 10% to 1%.
The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) will install about 18,000 20-inch Photomultiplier Tubes (PMTs) in the center detector to achieve 3%/sqrt(E(MeV)) energy resolution. From the full detector Monte Carlo (MC) simulation, besides the liquid scitillator (LS) and Acrylic nodes, PMT glass has the largest contribution to the natural radioactive background. Various technologies have been developed in the Chinese industry to control the environment and to improve the production process. We have monitored the glass production for more than two months, and the radioactivity in glass was measured using a low background gamma ray spectrometer equipped with a high resolution HPGe detector. The 238U, 232Th and 40K of the glass bulb are reduced by a factor of 2, 9 and 15 respectively, and now they can reach 2.5 Bq/kg for 238U, 0.5 Bq/kg for 232Th and 0.5 Bq/kg for 40K.
JUNO is proposed to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy and rich in many other neutrino topics. A prototype is designed and set up for better understanding sub-systems of future detector. The preliminary results show that its threshold reaches ~0.3MeV with trigger rate ~290 Hz on the ground with cosmic muon rate ~35 Hz. Aiming for a better detector understanding from PMT signal, three reconstruction algorithms are compared for PMT waveforms with different overshoot ratios, including charge integration, waveform fitting, and deconvolution. It is concluded that the three methods have similar performance on uncertainty and systematic bias while deconvolution algorithm is best to handle larger overshoot and the simplest charge integration could be considered with controlled overshoot for future fast preliminary reconstruction.