We just saw these at the Photonics West show:
These are stunning. They are batch/wafer fabricated and PCB surface mountable, about as big as an SO16 IC.
They haven't decided on pricing yet. I sure hope they are closer to $50 than to $500.
John
Doesn't appear to be terribly new, that announcement is from
2010. Knowing Hamamatsu, $50 sounds very optimistic. I'd guess a couple hundred $ each.Jon
They don't say how they work. The obvious model is the micro-channel plate photo-multiplier
but they could also allow accelerated free electrons to hit the surface of a reverse-biased diode and rely on avalanche multiplication in the reversed-biased diode for most of the multiplication, not unlike a SPAD, but separating a real photocathode from the multiplying diode seems to allow higher multiplication factors. Hamamatsu already have a product that works this way.
but I doubt that they'd put 8kV across the surface of a single chunk of silicon
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
It's a real photomultiplier: photocathode, shaped dynodes, anode, in a vacuum. It gets about the usual string of dynode votages. It's just tiny, and it's MEMS mass fabricated instead of hand assembled.
John
Good googling. I went looking for something like that and couldn't find anything with more content than your original link.
Do you know what sort of inter-dynode voltages it needs?
The old RCA 8850 had a gallium phosphide first dynode with a very high multiplication factor - of the order of several hundred secondary electrons per photo-electron - albeit with a nasty tendency to get poisoned if the anode current went over 100nA for any length of time.
Hamamatsu apparently came up with the me-too type R1322, but I suppose it would be too much to hope that they might have put a GaP surface on the first dynodes of the etched part.
-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
Sounds interesting, did you see any data, specs? Wonder if they'll make a better CW-HV source to power it.
George H.
"John Larkin" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
Interesting, is the dynode shielded? Or is that left up to the application. I could not find any other info on their website.
Cheers
I don't have any specs, but the guy at the show said it was about like other PMTs, roughly 1 KV from end to end.
John
They scanned my badge and said they would send me more info. I tried to pinch one, but they wouldn't let me. Heck, the show was almost over.
Yeah, the HV supply will be a lot bigger than the PMT.
John
I get invites to that show. What's it like?
Lots of laser companies, microscopy, people like Newport, Thorlabs, Edmund, FLIR, Trumf, Spectra-Physics and such, and a lot of smaller suppliers that have parts, filters, lenses, cameras, electronics, services. Lots of cool lasers, lenses, gadgets. You can probably still check the exhibitor list. It was huge, both sides of Moscone filled with exhibits, and very busy. Six or seven of my customers were exhibiting, so we got to schmooze.
I bought a neat Dino-lite USB microscope while I was there. The show was about to close so I got a deal on a measurement scope and stand. The guy who invented it was there, too.
I didn't attend any of the sessions, just the exhibits. Interesting stuff.
John
**********************************John Larkin, President Highland Technology, Inc
jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com
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