BATC was contracted by Langley Research Center (LaRC) to design and fabricate a gallium arsenide photomultiplier tube (GaAs PMT) for LIDAR applications. This particular GaAs PMT uses a high strip current ceramic channel electron multiplier (CEM), manufactured by K&M electronics, capable of operating at a gain of 10⁴ to 10⁷. The GaAs photocathode, processed by Litton Electro-Optical Systems, is used in reflection mode so that light passes through a faceplate, strikes the photocathode and generates photoelectrons, which are collected and multiplied by the CEM. Key issues during the development of this device were; (1) increasing the CEM strip current, (2) improvements in the CEM collection efficiency, (3) processing of an opaque extended blue GaAs photocathode, (4) CEM and photocathode lifetime and (5) electron optic modeling. This paper will discuss the test results from the three functional GaAs PMTs fabricated during this effort as well as development and fabrications issues.

Date Published: 25 November 1999
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 3764, Ultraviolet and X-Ray Detection, Spectroscopy, and Polarimetry III, (25 November 1999); doi: 10.1117/12.371091

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3764:
Ultraviolet and X-Ray Detection, Spectroscopy, and Polarimetry III
Silvano Fineschi; Bruce E. Woodgate; Randy A. Kimble, Editor(s)