Investigation of the Dynamic Range of Silicon Photomultiplier Tubes

Abstract

For detecting low-intensity optical radiation, multielement avalanche photodetectors, which are called silicon photomultiplier tubes, are increasingly used. However, not all characteristics of these photodetectors have been studied in detail; for example, there is no information on the effect of the supply voltage on the dynamic range. For studying the dynamic range, prototypes of silicon photoelectronic multipliers with a p⁺–p–n⁺ structure produced by OAO Integral (Belarus), as well as commercially available photomultipliers Ketek PM 3325 and ON Semi FC 30035, are used as the objects of investigation. It is found that an increase in the supply voltage leads to a decrease in the critical and threshold intensities. It is shown that the dependence of the dynamic range on the supply voltage has a peak. In photodetectors based on silicon photomultiplier tubes, for providing the peak dynamic range of detection, it is necessary to select the photodetector supply voltages corresponding to this peak. The results obtained can find application in developing and designing the devices and optical-radiation detectors based on silicon photomultiplier tubes.