Influence of incident light wavelength on time jitter of fast photomultipliers

Abstract

The study of the single photoelectron time resolution as a function of the wavelength of the incident light was performed for a 56 CVP photomultiplier having an S-1 photocathode. The light flash from the XP22 light emitting diode generator was passed through passband filters and illuminated the 5 mm diameter central part of the photocathode. A significant increase of the time resolution above 30% was observed when the wavelength of the incident light was changed from 790 nm to 580 nm. This gives experimental evidence that the time jitter resulting from the spread of the initial velocity of photoelectrons is proportional to the square root of the maximal initial energy of photoelectrons. Based on this conclusion the measured time jitter of C31024, RCA8850 and XP2020 photomultipliers with the use of the XP22 light emitting diode at 560 nm light wavelength was recalculated to estimate the time jitter at 400 nm near the maximum of the photocathode sensitivity. It shows an almost twice larger time spread at 400 nm for the C31024 and RCA8850 with a high gain first dynode and an about 1.5 times larger time spread for the XP2020 photomultiplier, than those measured at 560 nm.