Super radiation hard vacuum phototriodes for the CMS endcap ECAL

The energy resolution σ/E of the electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) in the energy range of 50–500GeV is defined mainly by two terms: stochastic α/√E and constant C. The photoreadout of the CMS Endcap ECAL consists of vacuum phototriodes (VPT), which are broadening a signal from np photoelectrons characterized by the excess noise factor F=np(σ/E)2. The technical specification of the CMS ECAL requires the value of F to be smaller than 4 in the CMS LHC environment during 10 years of detector operation. In this paper we present results of the VPT performance study in a magnetic field up to 4T, in a gamma radiation field of 0–50kGy and in a neutron fluence of 7×1015n/cm2. The standard phototriodes FEU-188 with faceplates from UV glass used in CMS ECAL as well as VPTs with super radiation hard cerium-doped glasses were investigated at the 60Co gamma facility, a neutron generator and a nuclear reactor in the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (PNPI). The dependence of the VPT gain and the excess noise factor in magnetic fields on the fine-mesh plane orientation has also been studied.