Development of a 10-inch HPD with integrated readout electronics

A round 10-in. diameter Hybrid Photodiode (HPD) with spherical entrance window is under development for Cherenkov imaging applications in cosmic ray astronomy. The HPD adopts the fountain focusing electron optics, which, as already demonstrated in the 5 inch Pad HPD, allows for a linear demagnification of the image over practically the full tube diameter. Self-triggering front-end electronics providing also sparse readout capability, has been tested. High-efficiency Rb//2Te cathodes have been produced on a UV extended borosilicate glass windows with very thin conductive underlayers of Indium Tin Oxide. We report on the design of the 10- in. HPD, the fabrication procedure and first tests of a 5-in. HPD with Rb//2Te photocathode and 2048 channels.