Evaluation of silicon photomultipliers for multiphoton and laser scanning microscopy

Abstract

The silicon photomultiplier (SIPM) is an emerging detector technology that enables both high sensitivity and high dynamic range detection of visible and near-infrared light at a fraction of the cost of conventional vacuum tube photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). A low-cost detection circuit is presented and the performance of a commercial SIPM is evaluated for high-speed laser scanning microscopy applications. For moderate-to-highspeed fluorescent imaging applications, the measurements and imaging results indicate that the SIPM exceeds the sensitivity of GaAsP PMTs, while providing higher dynamic range and better saturation behavior. For low speed or applications requiring large detector areas, the GaAsP PMT retains a sensitivity advantage due to large area and lower dark counts. The calculations presented show that, above a critical detection bandwidth, the SIPM sensitivity exceeds that of a GaAsP PMT.

Low-Light Photodetectors for Fluorescence Microscopy

“…Although SiPMs can detect intense light, their dark count rate is larger than that of PMTs, which is the major tradeoff. The advantage of high damage thresholds is reportedly distinct for confocal fluorescence microscopy and two-photon microscopy in clinical sites where surgical marking inks emit intense fluorescence [39]. SiPMs have not yet been widely used for biological imaging.…”

“…Giacomelli et al evaluated the performance of commercial SiPMs by comparing the SiPMs with a GaAsP PMT for LSM. They reported that the SiPM sensitivity exceeds the PMT sensitivity for moderate-to -highspeed LSM, whereas the PMT exhibited better sensitivity due to its lower dark counts for low speed LSM [39]. Modi et al also compared SiPMs products with a GaAsP PMT for two-photon imaging of neural activity [38].…”

Study through Geant4, for Time Resolution characterization of different detectors arrays coupled with two SiPMs, as a function of: the scintillator plastic material, its volumetric dimensions and the location of the radiation emission source

“…Compared to Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs), PMTs have a fairly high operating voltage, a low quantum efficiency (QE), and manufacturing costs are generally considered to be higher. On the other hand, "SiPMs" being made of silicon allow low manufacturing costs compared to vacuum tubes, high damage thresholds, low operating voltage, sensitivity within the infrared spectrum and easy portability [5,16]. For these advantages it is considered pertinent to simulate arrays of plastic scintillator coupled to SiPMs, analyze their response and evaluate the manufacturing plausibility of the complete detector.…”

“…These types of detectors are integrated with other detectors for the optimization in the identification of particles, in particles and ion collider projects such as LHC & JINR ("Large Hadron Collider" and "Joint Institute for Nuclear Research" respectively). The implementation of high resolution detectors not only transcends the field of research in particle physics, and high energies [1,2,17], they also stand out in some industrial security systems (dosimetry, spectrometry, X-rays) [7,15]; these detectors can also be found in hospitals, within some medical imaging equipment, such as X-Rays (XR), Fluoroscopy (RF), Computed Tomography (CT), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and Scanning Microscopy [5,13,14].…”

High-speed mosaic imaging using scanner-synchronized stage position sampling

“…We evaluated SiPM detectors and determined that at higher imaging rates, they had superior sensitivity to conventional GaAsP PMTs. 16 Subsequently, we designed open-source high-dynamic range detection electronics optimized for high throughput imaging, enabling more than an order of magnitude increase in photon throughput compared to PMTs. 17 Finally, we demonstrated that this improvement in throughput could be directly translated into higher imaging speeds.…”