Study of Fast, Near-Infrared Photodetectors for the ITER Core LIDAR Thomson Scattering

A key component for the ITER core LIDAR Thomson Scattering (TS) diagnostic would be a detector with good sensitivity in the 850-1060 nm near infrared (NIR) spectral region. Covering this spectral region becomes necessary if a Nd:YAG laser system operating at ? = 1.06 ?m is used as the laser source, which is a very attractive choice in terms of available energy, repetition rate, reliability and cost. In this paper we review the state of the art of two types of detectors available for the above spectral range: the transferred electron (TE) InGaAs/InP hybrid photodiode and the InxGa1-xAs microchannel plate (MCP) image intensifier and we describe the advancements necessary for a possible application in the ITER LIDAR TS. In addition we describe the preliminary characterization of new GaAsP fast MCP photomultipliers (PMTs) suitable for the detection of the visible part of the LIDAR TS spectrum in JET and ITER.