Study on the time resolution limits of FPMT and SiPM under femtosecond laser

Abstract

In the past decade, a type of micro-channel-plate based photomultiplier tubes (MCP-PMT) with fast-timing resolution, also called fast-timing PMT(FPMT), has attracted considerable attention in many fields for its single-photon detection capability, good timing performance and magnetic insensitivity. The Silicon Photo-multiplier (SiPM) is another kind of newly developed photodetector with comparable performance to the FPMT. More attention was paid to the single photon time resolution of the photodetectors. However, with the improvement of the temporal performance requirements of photodetectors, the time resolution limit of photodetectors determine the limits of time performance improvement, which worth investigating. In this manuscript, a femtosecond laser is used to calibrate the time resolution limit of FPMT and SiPM. The time resolution limit of FPMT is measured to be 480.4 fs. In addition, the temporal performance of FPMT from single photon to multi-photons under femtosecond laser is also investigated. The time resolution limit of SiPM is measured to be 2.68 ps.