Anode current saturation of ALD-coated Planacon® MCP-PMTs

We have measured and compared the characteristics of ALD-coated Planacon (R) MCP-PMTs (XP85112/A1-Q-L) with their non-ALD counterparts (XP85012/A1-Q). While the latter show excellent performance, the ALD-coated sensors have surprisingly low current saturation levels (similar to two orders of magnitude lower than expected) and extremely high gain recovery time (more than 7 orders of magnitude higher than expected). We suspect that these problems might be caused by the unexpected side-effects of the ALD process. To make a definite conclusion, more samples need to be tested, preferably from different production runs. If our observation were confirmed, it would mean a serious technological setback for ALD-coated MCP-PMTS.