Design and characterization of a 32-channel front-end ASIC for Silicon Photo-Multiplier detectors

Abstract

In many detector systems in which it is required to reveal the presence of high energy γ photons, Silicon Photo-Multipliers (SiPM) have gained a dominant role over classical Photo-Multiplier Tubes (PMT) thanks to their much lower bias voltage (30 - 60V vs >; 700V of PMT's), compact size and immunity to magnetic fields. These characteristics make SiPM's suitable for modern medical imaging systems such as Positron Emission Tomography coupled to Magnetic Resonance (PET/MRI) ones. However, the range of application of these devices extends to many other fields such as, for example, security systems (luggage scanners and dirty bomb detectors) high energy physics (e.g. calorimeters), astrophysics and space science.