Undergraduate Research at Jefferson Lab

Designing a Multi-Purpose Dark Box Optimized for PMT Uniformity Testing

Student: Nicholas M. Dowdle

School: Emory & Henry College at Emory

Mentored By: Jack McKisson

This paper describes the process of designing a means for measuring the response uniformity for position-sensitive photomultiplier tubes (PSPMTs), a trait which, in the ideal case, suggests identical responses for every pixel on the face of a PSPMT in a field of uniform light. However, significant non-uniformities arise in the practical usage of PSPMTs, necessitating some form of compensation before or after experimentation. A text fixture was assembled with the intended function of performing response uniformity measurements prior to experimentation, consisting of a specialized dark box with an internal mounting apparatus for a PSPMT to be tested and a light source. The final product has been shown to be capable of meeting the necessary requirements for response uniformity testing, which will expedite and simplify future experiments utilizing PSPMTs.