Development of large area, pico-second resolution photo-detectors and associated readout electronics

The Large Area Pico-second Photo-detectors described in this contribution incorporate a photo-cathode and a borosilicate glass capillary Micro-Channel Plate (MCP) pair functionalized by atomic layer deposition (ALD) of separate resistive and electron secondary emitters materials. They may be used for biomedical imaging purposes, a remarkable opportunity to apply technologies developed in HEP having the potential to make major advances in the medical world, in particular for Positron Emission Tomography (PET). If daisy-chained and coupled to fast transmission lines read at both ends, they could be implemented in very large dimensions. Initial testing with matched pairs of small glass capillary test has demonstrated gains of the order of 105 to 106. Compared to other fast imaging devices, these photo-detectors are expected to provide timing resolutions in the 10-100ps range, and two-dimension position in the sub-millimeter range. A 6-channel readout ASIC has been designed in 130nm CMOS technology and tested. As a result, fast analog sampling up to 17 GS/s has been obtained, the intrinsic analog bandwidth being presently under evaluation. The digitization in parallel of several cells in two microseconds allows getting off-chip digital data read at a maximum rate of 40 MHz. Digital Signal Processing of the sampled waveforms is expected achieving the timing and space resolutions obtained with digital oscilloscopes.