Development of an Ultra-Fast Photomultiplier Tube With Pulse-Dilation Technology

A pulse dilation photomultiplier tube (PD-PMT) has been developed. The photoelectrons energy is modulated by a time-dependent electric field between photocathode and ground mesh. Then, the photoelectron pulse is dilated as it transits in a relatively long drift region from mesh to microchannel plate (MCP). The dilated electron pulse is gained by the MCP and then detected by the output collector. Because the temporal width is magnified, the temporal resolution of the photomultiplier tube is better than that of the output collector alone. The result shows that the temporal resolution of the detector is improved to be 25 ps by using pulse-dilation technology, which is much better than 300 ps temporal resolution while without pulse-dilation. The ramp electrical pulse dilates the electron signal to improve the temporal response by about 10 times.