We report the results of the measurements of three pieces of the new Photonis miniPLANACON microchannel-plate photomultipliers (MCP-PMTs) intended for use in the demanding environment of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) beamline as a part of the AFP Time-of-Flight detector. These photomultipliers were modified in cooperation with the manufacturer by using a custom backend and were subjected to numerous tests, with the focus on the rate capability and crosstalk behaviour.
We determined that the two of them with a lower MCP resistance are able to operate without significant saturation at an anode current density of 1 mu A/cm(2). These two are, therefore, suitable for the intended use and are currently installed as part of the AFP detector packages.