High Speed HPD for Photon Counting

We have succeeded in the development of a high-speed Hybrid Photodetector (HPD), by using a reduced electron lens and a newly developed avalanche diode (AD) with very low capacitance. The HPD shows fast time response of less than 500 ps in both rise and fall times, and good timing resolution of 26 ps (one sigma) for single photons at full illumination on a photocathode 8 mm in diameter. Limiting factors of the timing resolution were further investigated, and were found to be the transit time difference of electrons in vacuum along the photocathode and the jitter of the electronics. The timing resolution is 15 ps for illumination of less than 5 mm on the central part of the photocathode, which includes the jitter of 13 ps from the electronics. This resolution is the world's highest for HPDs, and matches the resolution of MCP-PMTs. Both a GaAsP photocathode having close to 50% quantum efficiency in the visible and a bialkali photocathode having 34% QE in the UV were fabricated in view of making this device available for various applications. In this paper, we report the results of our evaluation, including discussion about the limiting factors of the timing resolution for the new HPD.