A Novel Diamond-like Carbon based photocathode for PICOSEC Micromegas detectors
Abstract
The PICOSEC Micromegas (MM) detector is a precise timing gaseous detector based on a MM detector operating in a two-stage amplification mode and a Cherenkov radiator. Prototypes equipped with cesium iodide (CsI) photocathodes have shown promising time resolutions as precise as 24 picoseconds (ps) for Minimum Ionizing Particles. However, due to the high hygroscopicity and susceptibility to ion bombardment of the CsI photocathodes, alternative photocathode materials are needed to improve the robustness of PICOSEC MM. Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) film have been introduced as a novel robust photocathode material, which have shown promising results. A batch of DLC photocathodes with different thicknesses were produced and evaluated using ultraviolet light. The quantum efficiency measurements indicate that the optimized thickness of the DLC photocathode is approximately 3 nm. Furthermore, DLC photocathodes show good resistance to ion bombardment in aging test compared to the CsI photocathode. Finally, a PICOSEC MM prototype equipped with DLC photocathodes was tested in muon beams. A time resolution of around 42 ps with a detection efficiency of 97% for 150 GeV/c muons were obtained. These results indicate the great potential of DLC as a photocathode for the PICOSEC MM detector.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.2406.08712,
title = {A Novel Diamond-like Carbon based photocathode for PICOSEC Micromegas detectors},
author = {X. Wang and R. Aleksan and Y. Angelis and J. Bortfeldt and F. Brunbauer and M. Brunoldi and E. Chatzianagnostou and J. Datta and K. Degmelt and G. Fanourakis and D. Fiorina and K. J. Floethner and M. Gallinaro and F. Garcia and I. Giomataris and K. Gnanvo and F. J. Iguaz and D. Janssens and A. Kallitsopoulou and M. Kovacic and B. Kross and P. Legou and M. Lisowska and J. Liu and I. Maniatis and J. McKisson and Y. Meng and H. Muller and E. Oliveri and G. Orlandini and A. Pandey and T. Papaevangelou and M. Pomorski and L. Ropelewski and D. Sampsonidis and L. Scharenberg and T. Schneider and L. Shang and M. Shao and L. Sohl and M. van Stenis and Y. Tsipolitis and S. E. Tzamarias and A. Utrobicic and I. Vai and R. Veenhof and P. Vitulo and S. White and W. Xi and Z. Zhang and Y. Zhou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2406.08712},
year = {2024}
}