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SILICON PHOTOMULTIPLIERS IN PARTICLE PHYSICS: POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS B. DOLGOSHEIN Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute, Kashirskoe shosse 31 Moscow, 115409, Russia ON BEHALF OF SIPM COLLABORATION* The current status of the Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM’s) – the limited Geiger mode devices with gain of 106 and single photon sensitivity is described. Using such a SiPM features as low noise, excellent photon counting capability and very good timing resolution the applications of SiPM’s in particle physics are discussed. The advantages and limitations of this relatively new technique are experimentally studied and future perspectives of the development are considered. 1. Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) description and performance 1.1. Background The Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) is relatively young and progressively developing photodetection technique [1,2,3 and also 4], which allows to obtain the intrinsic gain for single photoelectron at the level of 10 6, the value close to that of vacuum Photomultipliers. Such a large gain, which confirms the name “Photomultiplier”, became achievable due to the fact that the SiPM operates in limited Geiger mode in contrast with well known Avalanche Photodiodes (APD’s), operating in proportional mode. Proportional mode of the APD operation can achieve a typical gain at the level of 102 only (in exceptional cases 104 [5] ) due to relatively large value of the holes ionization coefficient in silicon – in contrast for instance with gas proportional counters, where the positive ions ionization coefficient in gas is negligibly small and much larger gas gain (up to 106 - 107 ) is possible. The limited Geiger mode operation of the silicon photodetectors is well known for at least 30 years (see for instance excellent review papers [6,7]). The Single Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) described in [6,7] is just a single small (20-200 m size) pixel, operating with bias voltage of 10-15% higher than the * SiPM Collaboration: P. Buzhan, B. Dolgoshein, A. Ilyin, V. Kantserov, V. Kaplin, A. Karakash, P. Komissarov, E. Popova, V. Tikhomirov (MEPhI, Moscow) L. Filatov, S. Klemin (PULSAR, Moscow) breakdown voltage. A Geiger discharge, initiated by photoelectron is limited either passively – by quenching resistor or actively – by special quenching electronics. The gain of 108-109 for single photoelectron has been achievable for the SPAD; however this device is just very small size single photon counter that is one bit binary (yes/no) device, not capable to measure the light intensity. 1.2. SiPM: main features and characteristics The Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) is multipixel silicon SPAD type photodiode with many micro pixels joined together on common silicon substrate and working on common load (see Fig. 1.). The typical size of each pixel is 20-30 m, the typical pixel number is about 103 mm-2. The pixels should be decoupled from each other in order to minimize the interpixel crosstalk and work as independent photon microcounters. Figure 1. Schematic view of multipixel Silicon Photomultiplier. This decoupling is realized by: Polysilicon quenching resistors for each pixel, which limit Geiger discharge and at the same time decouple pixel from pixel electrically. Specially designed boundaries between pixels in order to prevent the electrical coupling due to interpixel currents in silicon itself. Unfortunately these boundaries occupied some SiPM’s area, so the total sensitive pixels area covers geometrically only part of total one (geometrical package). There is another type of interpixel coupling – “optical crosstalk”. Its origin is related to the photons created in Geiger discharge with intensity of 10 -5 photons per one electron [8]. These photons, generated in fired pixel, can initiate the discharge in adjacent pixel(s). Operational SiPM bias voltage is 10-15% higher than the breakdown voltage, so each SiPM pixel operates in Geiger mode limited by individual polysilicon resistor. Provided that all pixels operate as independent microcounters one pixel Geiger signal is determined by the charge accumulated in pixel capacitance Cpixel: Qpixel= CpixelV= Cpixel(VbiasVbreackdown) , where overvoltage V value is about of few volts, Cpixel is typically of 50 fmF, so Qpixel is about of 300 fmC or 2106 electrons. The SiPM signal doesn’t depend on the number of primary carriers (because of Geiger mode), therefore each pixel detects the carriers created by photon or ionization particle or thermally with the same response signal (~10 6 electrons), that is the nuclear counter effect for SiPM is negligibly small. Due to the large number of independent photon microcounters the SiPM acquires a new capability compared to the SPAD ─ the measure of light intensity, which is proportional to the number of pixels fired by photons. Actually SiPM is semidigital and semianalogue at the same time: each pixel operates as a binary device, but the SiPM on the whole is an analogue detector, which can measure the light intensity within the dynamic range, determined by a finite number of pixels (~103 mm-2). As the SiPM depletion region is small (~2 m) and operating electric field is very high ((23)105V/cm with carrier drift velocity of ~107 cm/s), the Geiger discharge is extremely short and SiPM signal is intrinsically very fast (see Fig. 1). 1.3. SiPM photon counting capability The SiPM pulse height spectrum from low intensity light flash produced by light emission diode (LED) source is shown in Fig. 2 (room temperature) [3] in comparison with the same spectra from Hybrid Photodiode HPD (room temperature) and Visible Light Photon Counter VLPC (temperature 6.5K). It is possible to distinguish each photoelectron contribution even for more intensive light pulses with mean photoelectron (or pixel fired) number of 46 (Fig. 2d). An excellent SiPM single photoelectron (pixel) resolution (Fig. 2) is determined by several reasons A good pixel to pixel uniformity (gain variation). Negligible contribution of electronics noise (it can be estimated from pedestal width as 0.1 electron) due to high SiPM gain. Very low contribution of Excess Noise Factor (ENF), connected with Geiger discharge development (it can be estimated as 1.05), in contrast with large ENF for Avalanche Photodiode case (a typical value is 23) due to fluctuation of avalanche development process [11]. a) b) HPD c) d) Figure 2. SiPM (a) photon counting capability compared to VLPC (b) [9] and HPD (c) [10]. SiPM pulse height spectrum (d) for more intensive light burst with mean photoelectron number of 46. 1.4. SiPM gain and photon detection efficiency One can see in Fig. 3 the comparison of photon detection efficiencies [3] for vacuum and silicon devices. For PMT, APD and HPD the photon detection efficiency is actually a quantum efficiency QE, whereas for SiPM it is less than that due to geometrical packing factor geom=sensitive area/total area; the shape of photon detection efficiency curves for SiPM and APD (or another silicon photodetector) is rather similar (Fig. 3). The SiPM photon detection efficiency is for the time being at the level of PMT QE for blue light and larger for yellow-red region, that is important for some applications (for instance for the usage of wave length shifter (WLS) fibers ─ see below, Sec. 2.1.1 and 2.1.2). The photon detection efficiency depends on overvoltage V [3] (see Fig. 4), because the probability of Geiger mode discharge is overvoltage dependent. At the same time the single pixel gain increases linearly with overvoltage (as mentioned above) proportionally of accumulated charge CpixelV. Wavelength, nm Figure 3. Comparison of photon detection efficiency for PMT [12], APD [11] and SiPM [3]. Figure 4. SiPM gain and photon detection efficiency vs overvoltage. The sensitivity of SiPM gain and efficiency on temperature and bias voltage is quite important from practical point of view. The variation of temperature or bias voltage leads to variation of single pixel gain and SiPM efficiency. For instance, the gain variation of 3% (for the SiPM gain of 2106) may be determined by temperature change of about 7 or bias voltage 0.15V (or 310-3 Vbias) [3]. This variation is quite comfortable practically in contrast with much larger sensitivity of APD’s [11]. 1.5. The timing by SiPM The SiPM is intrinsically very fast due to very small width of depletion layer and extremely short time of Geiger type discharge development (less than 500 ps). Moreover after Geiger discharge each pixel is recovered with a typical time of order CpixelRpixel30 ns; in some cases the single pixel recovery time of 10-15 ns can be achieved (see below, Sec. 2.1.1). The timing properties of the SiPM can be seen in Fig. 5 [3] where the single photoelectron (single pixel) timing resolution is shown. Timing by SiPM has been measured using very low intensity fast laser pulse (40 ps FWHM) [3]. The SiPM single photoelectron timing resolution including the laser pulse and electronics contribution is 123 ps FWHM, which corresponds the intrinsic SiPM single photoelectron timing resolution of FWHM0 100 ps for photons absorbed in depletion region. In addition, the dependence of timing resolution on Nphotoelectrons as FWHM=FWHM0/(Nphotoelectrons)1/2 has been shown to be valid up to Nphotoelectrons of 100. 300 Number of events 250 MIP efficiency 200 95% 90% 25 pixels fired a) 150 100 50 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 100 Dark rate, Hz b) 10 1 expected cosmic ray level 0,1 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 Threshold, channels Figure 5. Single photoelectron timing resolution for SiPM. Figure 6. Pulse height distributions detected by scintillator+WLS fiber+SiPM for MIP signal from -source Sr90 (a), SiPM dark rate (b). It should be noted that such a single photoelectron timing resolution can be achieved using just a leading edge discriminator because the single photoelectron (single pixel) pulse is very stable (see Fig. 2). 1.6. Summary of SiPM features Let’s count the arguments in favor of SiPM: High gain (106) Low electronics noise, low excess noise factor Excellent photon counting capability Very low charge particle sensitivity (negligible nuclear counting effect) Very good timing (100 ps) Small recovery time Good temperature and voltage stability Insensitivity to magnetic field Low bias voltage (50 V) Low power consumption (50 W/mm2) Compactness Room temperature operation Simplest electronics Relatively low cost (low resistivity Si, relatively simple technology) There are of course some SiPM drawbacks and limitations. They will be considered below in Sec. 2 together with discussion of possible particular applications. 2. SiPM: fields for Applications in Particle Physics The main field for SiPM applications in Particle Physics is Low Light Level (LLL) detection. We consider in more detail three main directions. 2.1. LLL scintillation readout 2.1.1. Scintillator+WLS fiber+SiPM readout application for Calorimetry The plastic scintillator with wavelength shifter (WLS) readout is very attractive in case of the necessity to read out a very large number of scintillators with a small room available and also the need to perform in high magnetic field. One out of examples of such technique is TESLA Hadron Tile Calorimeter [13]. This very high granularity Calorimeter has to operate in magnetic field of 4 Tesla and consists of more than million of plastic scintillator tiles with a size of a few cm, located in between of 2 cm iron plates and read out by WLS fibers. The R&D of the TESLA Tile HCAL has been carried out in framework of CALICE Collaboration [14]. Using such an advantage of the SiPM as compactness, the SiPM is embedded just in the body of scintillator tile with a size of 50505 mm3 [15]. In Fig. 6a one can see the pulse height spectrum of -electrons from Sr90 source for such a tile+sci fiber+SiPM. The system of such a tiles (99 pieces) interleaved by 2 cm of iron has been build by CALICE Collaboration. Those 99 tiles were grouped in 11 layers with 33 tiles matrix and this detector (called MINICAL) has been tested in DESY electron test beam with energy from 1 to 6 GeV [15]. Electromagnetic shower longitudinal profile (4 GeV electron in MINICAL) can be seen in Fig. 7; note the MIP peak from noninteractined electron at Figure 7. MINICAL based on SiPM: 4 GeV electron shower longitudinal profile. MINICAL level 1, which is clearly seen due to a good SiPM pulse height resolution. Another advantage of SiPM – the gain of 106 – allowed us do not make use of any preamplifiers in this test beam measurements: just 30 m of cable between SiPM and ADC LeCroy2249A. Fig. 8 shows the linearity of MINICAL energy response; shower signal has been obtained as a sum of individual tile signals normalized on MIP signal for each tile and corrected by SiPM nonlinear response (see below). The MINICAL energy resolution is also shown in Fig. 8 in comparison with GEANT based MC simulations taking into account only physical sampling fluctuations of the shower energy. One can see from Fig. 8 that MINICAL based on SiPM does not deteriorate somehow the EM shower energy resolution. There are some limitations of the usage of Sci+WLS fiber+SiPM read out for tile calorimeters: First, the limited number of pixels leads to nonlinearity of SiPM signal for number of photoelectrons/tile greater than number of pixels. Fig. 9 shows such a nonlinear response of SiPM for short laser light pulse of 40 ps. However when light pulse is produced by real MINICAL Sci+WLS system, (~15 ns FWHM, see Fig. 10), the SiPM response saturates much more slowly: at the level of ~2000 pixels for SiPM with 1024 pixels (compare Fig. 9 with Fig. 10); this means that effective recovery time for each pixel is very small (~10 ns) and each pixel is fired approximately twice in average during Sci+WLS signal. 200 20 150 15 100 10 b) 50 5 0 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Energy, GeV Figure 8. The linearity response (a) and energy resolution (b) of MINICAL/SiPM detector. Energy resolution, % 25 a) Exp data MC data Number of pixels fired Energy Deposition, MIP's 250 1000 100 576 1024 4096 10 1 1 10 100 1000 10000 Number of photoelectrons Figure 9. Nonlinear response of SiPM’s with different number of pixels. Light signal is produced by fast laser (40 ps). Figure 10. Nonlinear response of SiPM with 1024 pixels for light signal (15 ns FWHM) corresponding to real MINICAL scintillator+WLS system response (insertion). Е0=47,6 6 10 5 Е=53В (kpixel=19,7*10 ) 5 5 Number of photoelectrons Е=50,5В (kpixel9,5*10 ) Dark rate, Hz 10 4 10 3 10 2 no crosstalks 10 1 10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Threshould, ph.e. 8 9 Threshold, phe Figure 11. SiPM (1024 pixels, room temperature) dark rate for different SiPM gains. 10 11 Coordinate along Sci bar, cm Figure 12. SiPM pulse height in number of photoelectrons vs MIP particle coordinate along the scintillation bar (2.5 cm 1 cm 2 m). Lower curves correspond the individual SiPM from both ends of the bar, upper one is a sum of both SiPM’s. Notwithstanding this nonlinearity of SiPM response, there is no impact on energy resolution (see Fig. 8) for EM shower with energy up to 6 GeV (~1200 photoelectrons/tile in shower maximum, SiPM with 1024 pixels). Another limitation factor in Sci+WLS fiber+SiPM read out for TESLA Tile HCAL is SiPM dark rate at threshold of 90-95% of MIP detection. This is important because the TESLA HCAL is assumed to be calibrated using cosmic muons without any triggering, so SiPM dark rate has to be of order of cosmic muons rate (see Fig. 6b). The SiPM dark rate as function of threshold is determined by optical crosstalk between SiPM pixels (see above, Sec. 1.2), which in turn depends on SiPM gain (see Fig. 11). The requirement to have a low dark rate limits the SiPM gain (at the level of 10 6) and efficiency at the level 10-12% for room temperature in case of TESLA Tile HCAL application. 2.1.2 Scintillator+WLS fiber+SiPM readout: application for scintillator strip tracking The SiPM’s can be used also for another type of scintillation systems long (2-4 m) strips with transverse size (1-2) cm – for muon tracking in collider experiments or for large neutrino experiments. Here SiPM’s can compete successfully with multianode PM’s thanks their relatively low cost. Fig. 12 shows the test results [16] obtained with such a scintillation strip (length of 2 m, with a size of 12.5 cm), both ends of which were equipped by two SiPM’s (1024 pixels, 11 mm size). Scintillator bar “Vladimir” type was wrapped by 3M reflecting paper; the WLS fiber (Kuraray Y-11, 1 mm in diameter) was positioned in the rectangular groove along the bar side of 2.5 cm 2 m. Fig. 12 shows the average values of scintillation signals from cosmic muons, which transverse of 1 cm scintillator bar. The SiPM pulse height from each end of the bar depends on muon coordinate along the bar, whereas the sum of both SiPM signals is rather stable and equal of about 18-20 photoelectrons. Such a signal looks quite promising for applications just today. 2.1.3. SiPM application for scintillator fiber readout The SiPM looks also attractive for readout in scintillator fiber trackers due to compactness, low noise and relatively low cost. Fig. 13 demonstrates the MIP particle (electrons with energy 1.5 MeV from Sr90 -source) detection by means SiPM (576 pixels, 11 mm2 size) which read out the signal from multicladding Kuraray scintillator fiber SCSF-3HF (1500)M with core diameter 0.94 mm, emission peak at 530 nm, decay time of 7 ns and attenuation length > 4.5 m [3]. SiPM signal-to-noise ratio at room temperature looks almost as good as for VLPC (T=6.5K) [17] and much better than for APD (room temperature) [18] because of very low electronic noise and negligible contribution of surface leakage current. The possible SiPM limitation for fiber tracking readout is relatively low photon detection efficiency (15% for measurements in Fig. 13), which can be not enough for thinner scintillator fibers. 2.2. SiPM for a single photon counting: possible application for EUSO (Extreme Universe Space Observatory) Experiment [19] EUSO Experiment is a good example, where the SiPM usage could be very effective. EUSO is a large optical telescope, located on the International Space Station at the 400 km distance from Earth Surface. It looks backwards at Earth atmosphere which is used as a target with an air mass of 21012 tons for a study of Extremely High Atmosphere Showers with energy of more than 1019-1020 eV (more than Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin GZP limit) and High Energy Neutrino Astronomy. Figure 13. SiPM application for scintillator fiber MIP detection (at room temperature), see text. EUSO telescope consists of the system of Fresnel lenses (2.5-3 m in diameter) with focal surface, containing of (2-3)105 photodetectors with a size of 4-5 mm. Actually EUSO telescope is the calorimeter-type detector, which measures the energy of Atmospheric Showers by detection of the fluorescent light of atmospheric nitrogen. Such a telescope has to detect not only shower energy (by measuring of number of photons – typically 100/shower) but also the location and arrival time of each photon, that is a 3D position of the shower. In other words EUSO is gigantic TPC type calorimeter; its performance depends crucially on photodetector properties (efficiency, dark noise and timing). The main requirements to photodetector are: good single photon counting capability sensitivity in 300-400 nm range with photon detection efficiency 30-40% or more timing at the level of 10 ns (corresponds to a few meters of spacing accuracy using light propagation time – for typical transfer size of the shower of hundreds meters) low single photoelectron dark rate (less than night sky rate 1MHz / photodetector) compactness, low weight, low power consumption The SiPM’s could be a good candidate for EUSO telescope provided that some limitation existing nowadays will be surmounted, namely: 1. Photon detection efficiency for 300 400 nm region is too low (a few %, see Fig. 3) – needs to be improved by increase of pixel packing efficiency and the change of SiPM topology. 2. SiPM’s with size of 11 mm2 is only carefully studied for the time being. Larger size SiPM’s fabrication shows worse yield presumably due to unperfectness of the Si substrate – needs to use the better quality Si wafers. 3. Single photoelectron (single-pixel) dark rate for SiPM size of 11 mm2 is too high ((23) MHz) for EUSO application and should to be decreased by factor of 100. There are two components of dark rate ─ thermal one, which decreases very rapidly with temperature, and electric field assisted component [20], which contributes significantly because of high electric field of ~3·105V/cm. Therefore the dark rate not more then night sky rate is needed for EUSO experiment and the SiPM’s with 4x4 (5x5) mm2 will require apparently a working temperature about -30ºC. 2.3. SiPM application for fast single photon timing Let us consider the possible SiPM application for a new generation of Cherenkov DIRC (Detector of Internal Reflected Cherenkov light) detectors. Such a detectors are considered for future High Luminosity B-factories: DIRC upgrade for BaBar [21] and Time of Propagation (TOP) detector for BELLE experiment [22]. The timing better than 100 ps is required for such a devices. For BaBar DIRC such a timing is needed for rejection of background hits and to reduce the chromatic aberrations, which limit the Cherenkov angle measurement accuracy and DIRC Particle Identification capability. For TOP counter the Cherenkov angle is extracted directly from space-time image of the light cone and timing of about 50 ps is required together with position sensitivity of a few mm. The SiPM has met this timing requirements needed (Fig. 5) although there is some unsolved problems, which are look like limitations, which we had for EUSO experiment, namely: SiPM dark rate (<300 kHz/few mm2 size is needed) Photon detection efficiency (better than 30% in wide range of wavelengths is desirable) 3. SiPM’s : perspectives of the developments The Si Photomultiplier is a rapidly developing technique, which has not reach its best parameters for the time being. Nevertheless, already now the SiPM has a good chance to be used for next generation of the experiments in Particle Physics, especially for next generation of High Luminosity Colliders (fast calorimetry and scintillation tracking, subnanosecond timing etc.). However some important SiPM parameters have to be improved, such as: Photon detection efficiency ─ up to 30-50% for wide wavelength region. Dark rate has to be reduced at least one order of magnitude. Optical crosstalk has to be reduced at least by one order of magnitude. Size of the SiPM’s has to be increased up to a few mm. The SiPM Collaboration (MEPhI+PULSAR(SiPM producer)) is planning to come as near as possible to SiPM parameters needed for most important applications in particle physics (and other fields) in one-two years. The main directions of the developments are: Improvement of SiPM technology process (better purity Si substrate, better gettering process, production yield increase etc.). Improvement of SiPM structure (pixel topology, geometrical packing efficiency, optical isolation between pixels, etc.) Acknowledgments All results obtained by SiPMs Collaboration during a few years have became possible thanks to the strong support of DESY directorate (especially of Prof. R.Klanner) and also due to ISTC grant No 1275-99, Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award (IV, RUS 1066839 GSA) and INTAS grant No YSF150-00. We thank also our colleagues from ITEP (Moscow) and from DESY for fruitful collaboration during the MINICAL test. References 1. G. Bondarenko et al., Nucl. Instr. Meth. A442, 187 (2000) and references therein. 2. P. Buzhan et al., The advanced study of Silicon Photomultiplier. Proc. of the 7th Int. Conf. on Advance Technology & Particle Physics, Como, Italy, Oct. 2001. 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