The current understanding of radiation tolerance of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) is reviewed. Radiation damage in silicon sensors is briefly introduced, surface and bulk effects are separately addressed. Results on the operation of irradiated SiPMs with X-ray, gamma, electron, proton and neutron sources are presented. The most critical effect of radiation on SiPMs is the increase of dark count rate, which makes it impossible to resolve signals generated by a single photon from the noise. Methods to characterize irradiated SiPMs after their single photo-electron resolution is lost are discussed. Due to the important similarity in the operation below the breakdown voltage, studies on radiation damage of avalanche photo-diodes (APD) are also reviewed. Finally, ideas are presented on how to approach the development of radiation hard SiPMs in the future.

Radiation damage of SiPMs

Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) have become popular light conversion devices in recent years due to their low bias voltage and sensitivity to wavelengths emitted from common scintillating materials. These properties make them particularly attractive for resource-constrained missions such as space-based detector applications. However, the space radiation environment is known to be particularly harsh on semiconductor devices, where high particle fluences can degrade performance over time. The radiation hardness of a particular SiPM, manufactured by ON Semiconductor (formally SensL), has yet to be studied with high energy protons, which are native to the space radiation environment. To study these effects we have irradiated groups of two SiPMs to four different fluences of 800 MeV protons delivered by the accelerator at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center. Fluences of 1 . 68 × 1 0 9 , 1 . 73 × 1 0 10 , 6 . 91 × 1 0 10 , and 1 . 73 × 1 0 11 protons cm − 2 , and their corresponding estimated doses of 0.15, 1.55, 6.19, and 15.5 kRad, were chosen based on estimates of the potential exposure a SiPM might receive during an interplanetary space mission lasting 10 years. We report the effects these doses have on dark current and the self-annealing time.

Proton irradiation damage and annealing effects in ON Semiconductor J-series silicon photomultipliers

Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPM) are an excellent choice for the scintillator light readout at hadron calorimeters due to their insensitivity to magnetic fields, low operating voltages, low cost, compactness and mechanical endurance. They are already successfully utilized in Projectile Spectator Detector (PSD) of NA61 at CERN, and will be utilized soon in PSD of CBM at FAIR and Forward Hadron CALorimeters (FHCAL) of BM@N at NICA heavy-ion collision experiments. The main issue of SiPM application is their degradation due to high neutron fluence that can reach up to 2×1011 neq/cm2 per year of the experiment operation. Multiple irradiation tests of SiPMs produced by Ketek, Zecotek, Hamamatsu and Sensl manufacturers were conducted at the cyclotron of NPI Řež with a broad neutron spectrum and total fluences in the wide range of 5×1010–6×1012 neq/cm2. Detailed characterisation of all SiPMs was performed based on dependencies of dark current on voltage, capacitance on voltage and frequency, and response to LED light on voltage. SiPM's breakdown voltage, quenching resistance, pixel capacitance, gain and signal to noise ratio were extracted from these measurements. Those parameters' dependence on neutron fluence and their variability are discussed. Performance of the PSD calorimeter module equipped with irradiated SiPMs in CERN during the beam scan with 2–80 GeV/c protons is briefly overviewed.

Characterisation of SiPM radiation hardness for application in hadron calorimeters at FAIR, CERN and NICA

Following on the success of the NASA-CNES CALIPSO/CALIOP space-based cloud-aerosol lidar, which is now approaching its 14th year of continuous operation, NASA Langley Research Center has been advancing space-based lidar mission concepts and related technologies to address future cloud, aerosol and ocean science objectives identified in the 2017 Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space. Recently, scientists at NASA Langley have been able to use data from CALIOP to retrieve global ocean biomass, which is a measurement that was never originally envisioned for this instrument, and represents a new scientific frontier for space-based lidar. CALIOP’s measurements complement ocean color records, extending ocean retrievals into nighttime and to high latitudes, and creating a more complete picture of global ocean biomass. Due to detector bandwidth limitations, however, CALIOP, as with ocean color, only obtains column-averaged measurements that are biased towards the surface. To address this limitation, Politecnico di Milano is developing a lidar detector based on a single photon avalanche diode (SPAD) array. This detector is expected to achieve a depth resolution of <1 m in the ocean, and have a detection efficiency and dynamic range that far exceeds that of the analog-readout, PMT-based receiver on CALIOP. Naturally, these same characteristics will also benefit cloud and aerosol retrievals, making SPAD arrays an excellent detector candidate for future space-based atmosphere and ocean lidar missions. Here, we describe potential advantages of fast (~THz) photon counting SPAD arrays, and how they are being developed for this application.

Terahertz photon counting: large-format SPAD arrays for lidar remote sensing of the atmosphere and ocean from space

A new laser-based externally-modulated electro-optically coupled detector (EOCD) architecture is being developed to enable high-density readout for radiation detectors with accurate analog radiation pulse shape and timing preservation. Unlike digital conversion before electro-optical modulation, the EOCD implements complete analog optical signal modulation and multiplexing in its detector front-end. The result is a compact, high performance detector readout that can be both radiation tolerant and immune to magnetic fields. In this work, the feasibility of EOCD was explored by constructing a two-wavelength laser-based externally-modulated EOCD, and testing analog pulse shape preservation and wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) crosstalk. Comparisons were first made between the corresponding initial pulses and the electro-optically coupled analog pulses. This confirmed an excellent analog pulse preservation over $ \sim {\hbox {29}}\% $ of the modulator’s switching voltage range. Optical spectrum analysis revealed less than $-{\hbox {14}}~\hbox{dB}$ crosstalk with 1.2 nm WDM wavelength bandgap, and provided insight on experimental conditions that could lead to increased inter-wavelength crosstalk. Further discussions and previous research on the radiation tolerance and magnetic field immunity of the candidate materials were also given, and quantitative device testing is proposed in the future.

Externally-Modulated Electro-Optically Coupled Detector Architecture for Nuclear Physics Instrumentation

A key feature of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) that can hinder their wider use in medium and high energy physics applications is their relatively high sensitivity to high energy background radiation, with particular regard to high energy neutrons Dosages of 1010 neq/cm2 can damage them severely In this study, some standard versions along with some new formulations are irradiated with a high intensity 241AmBe source up to a total dose of 5 × 109 neq/cm2 Key parameters monitored include dark noise, photon detection efficiency (PDE), gain, and voltage breakdown Only dark noise was found to change significantly for this range of dosage Analysis of the data indicates that within each vendor's product line, the change in dark noise is very similar as a function of increasing dose At present, the best strategy for alleviating the effects of radiation damage is to cool the devices to minimize the effects of increased dark noise with accumulated dose

Radiation tolerance survey of selected silicon photomultipliers to high energy neutron irradiation

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Radiation tolerance survey of selected silicon photomultipliers to high energy neutron irradiation