The micro channel plate (MCP) is a specially crafted microporous plate with millions of independent channels, each with secondary electron emission capability, which can be used as a standalone electronic multiplier amplifier. Due to the distance that electrons fly in the channel is much shorter than the traditional dynode, so the time performance is superior to the traditional dynode.

The microchannel plate photomultiplier tube (MCP-PMT) can be divided into two types: a small-area near-focus type (FPMT) and a large-area electrostatic focus type (LPMT). The small size FPMT of proximity focusing construct has many advantages such as fast time response, strong anti-interference ability, small volume and light weight. It is especially suitable for the detection of fast and very weak signals, and the time characteristic TTS can be on the order of tens of picoseconds.

A picosecond laser within single photon pulse operation mode is used as the test light source. The data acquisition system based on the Versa Module Eurocard (VME) Bus protocol, which widely used in high energy physics experiment. The single photon signal of the FPMT can be generate to be a NIM signal to the VME-TDC channel through the discriminator. The synchronous output signal of the picosecond laser also supplied ad the gate signal of the TDC. Then the data collected by the TDC will be transmitted to the computer and processed by the LabVIEW program. In the experiment, the time characteristics of a variety of FPMT prototypes were tested under different light intensities, different structured high-voltage dividers and different high-voltage distribution ratios.

The results show that the structures of high-voltage divider and the high-voltage distribution ratios have a great influence on the time resolution of the same FPMT. By optimizing the FPMT's voltage divider structure and selecting the appropriate high voltage distribution ratio, its time characteristics can be effectively improved.

The intrinsic time lower limit value of the FPMT in the non-single-photon working mode, is proposed to compare and analyze the time resolution of different FPMTs in different working states. After completing various optimized readout anode structural design for the FPMTs, it can be find that the best FPMT prototype in our Lab has the best intrinsic time resolution lower limit of 30 ps.