Improved lifetime of microchannel-plate PMTs

The charged particle identification at the PANDA experiment will be mainly performed with DIRC detectors. Because of their advantageous properties the preferred photon sensors are MCP-PMTs. However, until recently these devices showed serious aging problems which resulted in a diminishing quantum efficiency (QE) of the photo cathode. By applying innovative countermeasures against the aging causes, the manufacturers recently succeeded in drastically improving the lifetime of MCP-PMTs. Especially the application of an ALD coating technique to seal the material of the micro-channels proves very powerful and results in a lifetime of ≈6C/cm2 integrated anode charge without a substantial QE degradation for the latest PHOTONIS XP85112. This paper will present a comparative measurement of the lifetime of several older and recent MCP-PMTs demonstrating this progress.