Progresses of silicon photomultiplier technologies with epitaxial quenching resistors

Abstract

During past years, Novel Device Laboratory (NDL) has developed silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) technologies with epitaxial quenching resistors (EQR). EQR-SiPMs feature a continuous low-resistance doping layer and integrated quenching resistors in the epitaxial silicon layer. This design allows small microcells to have a higher than usual fill-factor (FF), thus yielding a large dynamic range while retaining a useful photon detection efficiency (PDE). In this manuscript we report the new version of EQR-SiPM with p-on-n diode configuration and demonstrate its use in radiation detection. The 3 mm×3 mm device features a high cell density of 9381/mm2, a FF of 36.5%, and PDE of 27%. The SiPM was coupled to a 5 mm×5 mm×10 mm YSO(Ce) scintillation crystal and used to measure gamma-ray spectra from various isotopic sources. The detector exhibited an energy resolution of 7.6 ± 0.6% at 662 keV. The energy response was effectively linear between 32 and 1332 keV, owing to the large dynamic range of the SiPM. These characteristics make the SiPM-based detector well-suited to measure gamma ray spectra over a wide energy range.