Speaker
Description
The ABALONE is a new type of photosensor produced by PhotonLab with cost effective mass production, robustness and high performance. This modern technology provides sensitivity to visible and UV light, exceptional radio-purity and excellent detection performance in terms of intrinsic gain, afterpulsing rate, timing resolution and single-photon sensitivity.
The new hybrid photosensor, that works as light intensifier, is based on the acceleration in vacuum of photoelectrons generated in a traditional photosensor cathode and guided towards a window of scintillating material that can be read from the outside through a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM).
In this contribute we present the characterization of the ABALONE operated at room temperature for the evaluation of the gain as function of the electric field, the response in time and the single-photoelectron spectrum. In order to better understand the experimental results, we performed the simulation of the photosensor by reproducing the electrostatic field, by tracking the accelerated photoelectrons and their interaction in the scintillation window.
Soon we plan to operate the ABALONE in a Xe environment. Details of future tests and possible applications in the context of next-generation astroparticle physics experiments (e.g., DARWIN) will be also discussed.
