Ultra-High-Sensitivity New Super-HARP Pickup Tube and Its Camera( Recent Progress in Photon Detection Technology)

We developed an ultra-high-sensitivity “New Super-HARP” pickup tube by using avalanche multiplication in a photoconductive target. The pickup tube, which has an amorphous selenium target 25 μm thick, exhibited an avalanche multiplication phenomenon at applied target voltages of more than 1800 V. A thin region of the selenium layer next to the signal electrode was doped with tellurium to increase the quantum efficiency of the target. The performance of the tube was evaluated in a color camera. It was found that the “New Super-HARP” pickup tube is about 100 times more sensitive than CCDs.