Silicon Photo Multipliers Detectors Operating in Geiger Regime: an Unlimited Device for Future Applications

Abstract

Photon detectors are indispensable in many areas of fundamental physics research, particularly in the emerging fields of particle astrophysics, nuclear and particle physics, as well as in medical equipment (i.e. PET), in physical check-ups and diagnosis as in-vitro inspection (Radioimmunoassay and Enzyme immunoassay as luminescent, fluorescent, Chemiluminescent Immunoassay), biomedicine, industrial application, in environmental measurement equipment (like dust counters used to detect dust contained in air or liquids, and radiation survey monitors used in nuclear power plants). In astroparticle physics, photons detectors play a crucial role in the detection of fundamental physical processes: in particular, most of the future experiments which aimed at the study of very high-energy (GRB, AGN, SNR) or extremely rare phenomena (dark matter, proton decay, zero neutrinosdouble beta decay, neutrinos from astrophysical sources)[3-7] are based on photons detection. The needs of very high sensitivity push the designing of detectors whose sizes should greatly exceed the dimensions of the largest current installations. In the construction of such large-scale detectors no other option remains as using natural media atmosphere, deep packs of ice, water and liquefied gases at cryogenic temperatures [8-13]. In these (transparent) media, charged particles, originating from interaction or decays of primary particles, emit Cherenkov radiation or fluorescence light, detected by photosensitive devices. Hence, for the improvement in the quality of the experimental results a particular attention should be paid to the improvement of photon detectors performances. In underwater neutrino telescopes (but this is applicable also to other experiments) Cherenkov light, emitted by charged leptons stemming from neutrino interaction, hits photomultipliers (PMT) situated at different distances from the track. This implies, that the response of PMTs should be linear in a very wide range from high illumination to the single photon. Another area of interest is the direct searches of Dark Matter in form of WIMPs: in these experiments it is exploited the scintillation properties of double-phase (liquid-gas) detectors, where primary and secondary scintillation light signals are detected by high-efficiency PMTs, immersed in cryogenic liquids or low temperature gases (89 K for the liquid argon) [14-17]. The next generation of experiments requires further improvement in linearity, gain, and sensitivity (quantum efficiency and single photon counting capability) of PMTs.