Silicon Photomultipliers Signal-to-Noise Ratio in the Continuous Wave Regime

Abstract

We report on Signal-to-Noise Ratio measurements carried out, in the continuous wave regime, at different bias voltages, frequencies and temperatures, on a class of silicon photomultipliers fabricated in planar technology on silicon p-type substrate. \ud Signal-to-Noise Ratio has been measured as the ratio of the photogenerated current, filtered and averaged by a lock-in amplifier, and the Root Mean Square deviation of the same current. The measured noise takes into account the shot noise, resulting from the photocurrent and the dark current. We have also performed a comparison between our SiPMs and a photomultiplier tube in terms of Signal-to-Noise Ratio, as a function of the temperature of the SiPM package and at different bias voltages. Our results show the outstanding performance of this class of SiPMs even without the need of any cooling system

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“…Great efforts have been put into investigating and improving solid state silicon devices in order to replace the PMT throughout the past two decades [5]- [8]. Recently, the Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) has been emerged as a promising photo-detector technology [9]- [12]. A SiPM typically is composed of a 2-D array of small APDs (called cells or microcells) designed to operate in Geiger-mode.…”

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“…Hence, the choice of detectors includes light-sensitive diodes, photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), semiconductor-based pin, and charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras [41][42][43] as well as avalanche photodiodes (APDs) [44]. More recently, silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) have been intensively utilized for fNIRS applications as well [41,44,45]. SiPMs feature major advantages in terms of sensitivity, gain, and speed to acquire the signal [46].…”

A tomography diagnostic in the visible spectrum to investigate turbulence and coherent modes in the linear plasma column Mistral

“…The main noise sources of SiPM are correlated noise (crosstalk and afterpulse), shot noise, and thermal noise. 9,10 They can be used in photon counting mode for very low light levels, or in continuous wave mode, which is the case for our experimental conditions. In this case the correlated noise only offsets the measured level, but does not add statistical noise, and can be taken into account in the calibration.…”