Studies of MCP properties

Abstract

Cherenkov detectors of the DIRC type will be used for the particle identification of the PANDA experiment at FAIR. Because of their advantageous properties inside a magnetic field micro-channel plate (MCP) photomultipliers (PMT) are very attractive photon sensors for the two PANDA DIRCs. Various types of MCP-PMTs were investigated. Their gains and their time resolutions were measured as a function of the magnitude and the direction of a magnetic field. It was found that with a pore size of ⩽ 10 μm efficient single photon detection is possible even at 2 Tesla if the field direction is close to parallel to the PMT axis. The gain of most of the studied MCP-PMTs remains stable up to a photon density of roughly 1 MHz/cm2, while the new Hamamatsu R10754-00-L4 can stand rates of about 10 MHz/cm2 before the gain starts decreasing. The time resolution of all investigated MCP-PMTs was better than 50 ps (σ). The response of the multi-anode MCP-PMTs was scanned as a function of the position of the photo cathode plane in particular to measure the crosstalk among adjacent pixels. Most of the sensors show a satisfactory behavior.