A photoelectric tube includes a housing including a light transmitting portion, an electron emitting portion including a photoelectric surface disposed inside the housing, an electron capturing portion disposed between the light transmitting portion and the photoelectric surface inside the housing, and a conductive layer disposed on a light transmitting portion side of at least a part of the electron capturing portion to face the photoelectric surface inside the housing and configured to allow light to pass therethrough.

A photoelectric tube includes a housing including a light transmitting portion, an electron emitting portion including a photoelectric surface disposed inside the housing, an electron capturing portion disposed between the light transmitting portion and the photoelectric surface inside the housing, and a conductive layer disposed on a light transmitting portion side of at least a part of the electron capturing portion to face the photoelectric surface inside the housing and configured to allow light to pass therethrough.

A light intensifier includes a semiconductor structure to multiply electrons and block stray particles (e.g., photons and/or ions). The semiconductor structure includes an electron multiplier region that is doped to generate a plurality of electrons for each electron that impinges a reception surface of the semiconductor structure, blocking regions that are doped to direct the plurality of electrons towards emissions areas of an emission surface of the semiconductor structure, and shielding regions that are doped to absorb stray particles that impinge the emission surface of the semiconductor structure.

A light intensifier includes a semiconductor structure to multiply electrons and block stray particles (e.g., photons and/or ions). The semiconductor structure includes an electron multiplier region that is doped to generate a plurality of electrons for each electron that impinges a reception surface of the semiconductor structure, blocking regions that are doped to direct the plurality of electrons towards emissions areas of an emission surface of the semiconductor structure, and shielding regions that are doped to absorb stray particles that impinge the emission surface of the semiconductor structure.

A system and method are presented for the design and fabrication of arrays of vacuum photodiodes for application to solar power generation. In a preferred embodiment, each photodiode cell comprises a microfabricated enclosure with a hermetically sealed vacuum, an absorptive photocathode, and a transparent anode, wherein the photocathode and the anode are separated by a vacuum gap of less than about 20 micrometers. Light incident on the photocathode through the anode leads to a flux of electrons passing from the photocathode across the vacuum gap to the anode. In a further preferred embodiment, the photocathode is backed by a reflection layer with, e.g., controlled diffuse reflection, thus increasing the efficiency of energy extraction. An array of such cells may be manufactured using automated thin-film deposition and micromachining techniques.

A system and method are presented for the design and fabrication of arrays of vacuum photodiodes for application to solar power generation. In a preferred embodiment, each photodiode cell comprises a microfabricated enclosure with a hermetically sealed vacuum, an absorptive photocathode, and a transparent anode, wherein the photocathode and the anode are separated by a vacuum gap of less than about 20 micrometers. Light incident on the photocathode through the anode leads to a flux of electrons passing from the photocathode across the vacuum gap to the anode. In a further preferred embodiment, the photocathode is backed by a reflection layer with, e.g., controlled diffuse reflection, thus increasing the efficiency of energy extraction. An array of such cells may be manufactured using automated thin-film deposition and micromachining techniques.

Exemplary metamaterial photocathodes enable detection of light from visible through long wave infrared wavelengths. Metamaterial stacks, comprising gold, silicon, and cesium-oxide, coupled to a semiconductor allow hot electrons to efficiently enter a vacuum. The hot electrons are multiplied in a multichannel plate and directly through another vacuum towards a phosphorus screen.

Exemplary metamaterial photocathodes enable detection of light from visible through long wave infrared wavelengths. Metamaterial stacks, comprising gold, silicon, and cesium-oxide, coupled to a semiconductor allow hot electrons to efficiently enter a vacuum. The hot electrons are multiplied in a multichannel plate and directly through another vacuum towards a phosphorus screen.

A method and a light detector that includes (i) a photon to electron converter a photon to one or more photoelectrons; (ii) a photoelectron detection circuit that includes a photoelectron sensing region; (iii) a chamber; (iv) a bias circuit that is configured to supply to the light detector one or more biasing signals for accelerating a propagation of the one or more photoelectrons within the chamber and towards the photoelectron sensing region; (iv) a photoelectron manipulator that is configured to operate in a selected operational mode out of multiple operational modes that differ by their level of blocking, (v) a controller that is configured to control the photoelectron manipulator based on a feedback about the at least one of (a) the photon, (b) the one or more photoelectrons, (c) a previous photon and, (d) previous one or more photoelectrons.

The invention relates to a photocathode including an input window (210) suitable for receiving a flow of incident photons, and an active layer (230), the active layer consisting of a plurality of elementary layers (2301, 2302) made of semiconductor materials having decreasing forbidden bandwidths in the direction of the flow of incident photons. The surface of the photocathode opposite the input window is structured so that each elementary layer of the active layer has its own photoelectric emission surface (2401, 2402). By choosing the semiconductor materials of the elementary layers, it is possible to obtain an image which has high sensitivity in both the visible spectrum and the near infrared.