Precision timing measurement of phototube pulses using a flash analog-to-digital converter

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the timing performance of flash ADC readouts for photomultiplier pulses in the GlueX calorimeter, demonstrating sub-nanosecond resolution across different sampling depths and signal amplitudes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of timing resolution using two flash ADC prototypes with different bit depths, achieving better than 1 ns resolution regardless of signal size.

Findings

Timing resolution better than 1 ns for all tested signals

Achieved timing resolution of 0.57 ns for 100 mV pulses

Achieved timing resolution of 0.24 ns for 500 mV pulses

Abstract

We present the timing characteristics of the flash ADC readout of the GlueX forward calorimeter, which depends on precise measurement of arrival time of pulses from FEU 84-3 photomultiplier tubes to suppress backgrounds. The tests presented were performed using two different 250 MHz prototype flash ADC devices, one with eight-bit and one with twelve-bit sampling depth. All measured time resolutions were better than 1 ns, independent of signal size, which is the design goal for the GlueX forward calorimeter. For pulses with an amplitude of 100 mV the timing resolution is 0.57 +- 0.18 ns, while for 500 mV pulses it is 0.24 +- 0.08 ns.