Heat enhancement of radiation resistivity of evaporated CsI, KI and KBr photocathodes

The photoemissive stability of as-deposited and heat-treated CsI, KI and KBr evaporated thin films under UV radiation is examined in this paper. After the deposition, some photocathodes were annealed for several hours at 90°C in vacuum and their performance was then compared to the performance of non-heated samples. We observed that the post-evaporation thermal treatment not only increases the photoyield of CsI and KI photocathodes in the spectral range of 115–190 nm, but also reduces CsI, KI and KBr photocurrent degradation that occurs after UV irradiation. KBr evaporated layers appeared to be more radiation-resistant than CsI and KI layers. Post-deposition heat treatment did not result in any significant variation of KBr UV sensitivity.