Hybrid photon detectors

Abstract

Hybrid photon detectors detect light via vacuum photocathodes and accelerate the emitted photoelectrons by an electric field towards inversely polarized silicon anodes, where they are absorbed, thus producing electron-hole pairs. These, in turn, are collected and generate electronic signals on their ohmic contacts. This review first describes the characteristic properties of the main components of hybrid photon detectors: light entrance windows, photocathodes, and silicon anodes. Then, essential relations describing the trajectories of photoelectrons in electric and magnetic fields and their backscattering from the silicon anodes are derived. Depending on their anode configurations, three families of hybrid photon detectors are presented: hybrid photomultiplier tubes with single anodes for photon counting with high sensitivity and for gamma spectroscopy; multi-anode photon detector tubes with anodes subdivided into square or hexagonal pads for position-sensitive photon detection; imaging silicon pixel array tubes with finely segmented anodes for photon-sensitive imaging devices. Some of the hybrid photon detectors' applications and achievements in radiation detection are discussed and compared with competing devices such as photomultipliers, image intensifiers, photodiodes, silicon drift chambers, charge coupled devices, visible light photon counters, and photographic emulsions.

Optical properties of Ce3+-doped KLuS2 phosphor

“…Light yield and energy resolution were determined by the pulse height spectroscopy of scintillation response [37], using the HPMT (Hybrid Photomultiplier) [38] model DEP PPO 475B, spectroscopy amplifier ORTEC model 672 (shaping time t¼ 1 μs) and multichannel buffer ORTEC 927TM. Low energy γ-ray from 57 Co (122 keV) and 241 Am (59.5 keV) were used for excitation.…”

Scintillator studies for the HPD-PET concept

“…The interpretation of these data indicates that the Teflon wrapping represents a good compromise for 10 cm long YAP crystals. The experimental resolutions are summarized in Table 1 together with the N 0 values derived by assuming [2,13] an intrinsic energy resolution ðs E =EÞ intr: of 1.4% and 5% for YAP and LYSO, respectively, at 511 keV, and a PMT excess noise factor value [10] of ENF ¼ 1.4:…”

“…where ENF is the excess noise factor [10] of the photodetector, c is a constant, and R int is the scintillator intrinsic resolution. From the previous equations it can be seen that while an increase of N 0 improves all the resolutions, an increase of l eff , although improving s E /E and s T , worsens s z .…”

Growth and emission properties of Sc, Pr, and Ce co-doped Lu3Al5O12 epitaxial layers for scintillators

“…Experimental set-up was described elsewhere [19,20]. This method uses hybrid photon detection and it consists of HPMT (S20 cathode sensitivity) and electronics for pulse height spectra measurements [19,21].…”