3, JUNE 2010
AbstractThe performance of multi pixel photon counters count rate and capacitance of the MPPC detectors [5]. Unfor-
(MPPC) of 3 mm 2 3 mm size, with 14400 and 3600 pixels, were tunately, most of these features because of their contradictory
studied by means of the signal from a laser light pulser and
using the 3 mm 2 3 mm 2 20 mm LSO pixel scintillator. Special
nature cant be realized in one device.
attention was paid to measure number of fired pixels, generated Recently Hamamatsu has introduced on the market a
by the light of pulser and that of the LSO crystal, using a direct 3 3 mm MPPC with 3600 and 14400 pixels, better fitted
method of a comparison of the light peak position in the pulse to make tests with scintillators of the size assuring acceptable
height spectrum with that of the single photoelectron. The tests detection efficiency for gamma rays.
of the LSO crystal showed 1550 6 80 fired pixels per MeV in This paper will focus on two aspects in characterization of
the MPPC with 14400 pixels assuring a good linearity of the
response up to about 1 MeV energy of gamma rays absorbed in
the MPPC detectors, first using a laser diode pulser and in the
the LSO crystal. Energy resolution of 14.8% for 662 keV gamma second part, a study with LSO (Lu SiO :Ce) pixel crystal cou-
rays from 137 Cs source and a time resolution of about 850 ps for pled to the MPPC. A considerable effort has been made to mea-
511 keV annihilation quanta were limited by a rather low number sure the amount of detected light as estimated by the number of
of the fired pixels compared to the number of photoelectrons in fired pixels (comparable to the photoelectron number in other
photomultipliers.
detectors) and the pulse height resolution. In scintillation tests
Index TermsDetector linearity, multi pixel photon counters the measurements covered the determination of the energy res-
(MPPC), scintillation detection. olution, non-proportionality of the light yield and the time res-
olution for 511 keV annihilation quanta for both types of the
3 3 mm Hamamatsu MPPC detectors.
I. INTRODUCTION Effects relating to the cross-talk and afterpulses in the MPPC
were not studied in this work, because they were completely
ACING the challenge to introduce a solid state photode-
F tector into different fields of photon detection, from med-
ical to high energy physics applications, a lot of efforts have
masked by a high noise level.
been made to develop new multi pixel photon counters (MPPC). II. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS
The MPPC is a solid state photodetector also known as the sil- All the studies were done using two Hamamatsu MPPC of
icon photomultiplier (SiPM). It is a photon-counting device con- 3 mm 3 mm size, S10362-33-025C and S10362-33-050C,
sisting of multiple avalanche photodiode pixels connected in consisting of 14400 and 3600 pixels, respectively. Two samples
parallel and operating in the Geiger mode. When photons enter of each device were tested. In the first part of the study, the
a pixel while it operates in Geiger mode, the pulse output from MPPCs were illuminated by a red laser diode type HL6501MG
the pixel is constant regardless of the number of photons. This from Opnext, Japan. In the second part of the study, a detector
means that each pixel provides only the information whether or consisting of a 3 mm 3 mm 20 mm LSO pixel crystal, cou-
not it received one or more photons. The output signal from the pled to both types of MPPC detectors, was analyzed. The LSO
MPPC is proportional to the number of excited pixels. Details crystal was coated with Teflon tape and coupled to the MPPC
of the operational characteristics of a SiPM can be found in the with silicone grease. The main MPPC parameters, according
literature [1][7]. to the manufacturer data, are summarized in Table I, and the
Nowadays the manufacturers efforts are focused on improve- main physical properties of the LSO scintillator are collected
ment of overall photon detection, effective area, amount of ac- in Table II.
tive pixels, detection efficiency as well as reduction of dark In all the measurements, the MPPC signal was sent to the
charge sensitive preamplifier [11] and then to the Ortec 460
Manuscript received October 18, 2008; revised April 02, 2009, July 23, 2009, Delay Line Amplifier, selected to reduce a shift of the baseline at
and October 08, 2009; accepted October 08, 2009. Date of current version June the amplifier output caused by a high rate of noise pulses in the
16, 2010.
A. Nassalski, M. Moszynski, A. Syntfeld-Kazuch, T. Szczesniak, . MPPC. A PC-based multichannel analyzer (MCA) Tukan 8 K
Swiderski, D. Wolski, and T. Batsch are with the Soltan Institute for Nuclear [12] recorded energy spectra. Peak positions and their full width
Studies, PL 05-400 Otwock-Swierk, Poland (e-mail: marek@ipj.gov.pl). at half maximum (FWHM) were obtained by applying Gaussian
J. Baszak is with Hamamatsu Photonics Deutschland GmbH, Polish Office,
PL 02-525 Warsaw, Poland (e-mail: jbaszak@hamamatsu.de). fits. In the analysis, the FWHM of the peaks was not corrected
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TNS.2010.2044586 for the saturation effect in the MPPC.
TABLE I
MAIN PARAMETERS OF THE HAMAMATSU MPPC USED IN THE STUDY
TABLE II The rise time of the MPPC response to the laser pulse is de-
MAIN PROPERTIES OF LSO SCINTILLATOR fined by the shape of the light pulse, while its fall time is the
effect of the large capacitance of the device. This 320 pF capac-
itance, together with the 50 ohms load resistor at the input of
the scope forms a low pass filter with the loading time constant
of 16 ns. It is confirmed at the lower panel of Fig. 2 displaying
the MPPC output signal recorded with an additional 50 ohms
resistor at the anode of the MPPC. The fall time is shorter by
about factor of 2.
The reported shape of the MPPC output pulse is different than
that observed and predicted for MPPC devices with small capac-
itance. The small MPPCs characterize by about 10 times lower
capacitance and then, show two components of the fall of the
output signal [13], distinguished however, due to a much lower
loading integration time constant, below 2 ns. A direct compar-
ison of the response of 1 1 mm and 3 3 mm detectors is
III. RESULTS presented in [5], confirming results of Fig. 2.
In the next part of the study, tests of the linearity of the output
A. MPPC Performance signal were performed. Since each pixel detects only whether
A dark counts pulse height spectrum of the MPPC or not, one or more photons have entered the detector, the total
S10362-33-025C is shown in Fig. 1. The MPPC dark noise number of the fired pixels does not directly correspond to the
spectrum was measured at 69 V bias, corresponding to 1 V number of detected photons. If two or more photons are trig-
over-voltage, and at the temperature in the laboratory of about gering one pixel then the photon detection linearity degrades
20 C. A very high counting rate of dark noise pulses shifts because the number of incident photons becomes larger than the
up the base line at the output of the amplifier introducing number of fired pixels. This is reflected in (1), which presents
a positive offset in the spectrum that degrades pulse height the relation of the number of fired pixels as a function of the
resolution. Thus, the position of the single photoelectron peak number of detected photons for a given number of pixels in the
was corrected for this offset, which was determined from the MPPC [2]
calibration based on the single and double photoelectron peaks.
It was used further, as the reference, to measure the number (1)
of the fired pixels for the light flashes from the laser pulser or
LSO crystal. where
The MPPC response to the light pulse from the laser diode : number of excited pixels,
is presented in Fig. 2, as observed at a digital scope (Tektronix
TDS5034B). The laser was triggered by the short pulse of 3 ns : total number of pixels,
(FWHM) producing light pulse of 6 ns (FWHM), and monitored : number of incident photons,
by the very fast PMT (R5320), characterized by a rise time of
PDE: photon detection efficiency.
the single photoelectron pulse of 700 ps.
1010 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NUCLEAR SCIENCE, VOL. 57, NO. 3, JUNE 2010
Fig. 2. S10362-33-025C MPPC output pulse, the light pulse from laser, as seen by the fast PMT (R5320) and the electrical pulse used to trigger the laser. Upper
panel presents output signal on 50 ohms loading resistor at the input of a scope, while at the lower panel the second 50 ohms resistor was placed at the anode of
the MPPC. Note a faster fall time due to a shorter time constant at the MPPC output.
The photon detection efficiency, PDE, is the product of the MPPCs of 14400 and 3600 pixels show non-linear behavior.
quantum efficiency (QE), the fill factor or geometrical factor However it is clear that the range of linearity is more extended
(GF) and the probability that an incoming photon trigger a in case of the MPPC with a higher number of active pixels.
breakdown (Pt) [2] In the next experiment the MPPC was illuminated by light
pulses from the laser of different intensities and then their pulse
(2) height spectra were stored at MCA. For each position of the
peak, the corresponding number of the fired pixels was deter-
The number of detected photons is described, in turn, by
mined in relation to the single photoelectron peak and its re-
(3) spective FWHM, expressed in the number of the fired pixels
was obtained from the Gaussian fit. The results are presented in
Fig. 3 presents the measured number of the fired pixels versus Fig. 4, where the plot of the measured FWHM versus the square
the number of detected photons, calculated, following (1) and root of the measured number of fired pixels is presented. The
(3). It reflects the deviation from the linear dependence repre- nonlinear response of MPPC is reflected by a deviation of the
sented by the solid line, calculated for the infinite number of FWHM of the continuous line calculated from Poisson statistic,
pixels in the MPPC. Error bars are within the point size. Both for a perfectly linear photodetector. In the case that two or more
NASSALSKI et al.: MULTI PIXEL PHOTON COUNTERS (MPPC) AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO APD IN PET APPLICATIONS 1011
Fig. 3. Number of excited pixels versus the number of detected photons, for Fig. 5. Energy spectra of singe photoelectron and cesium source ( Cs), mea-
both 14400 and 3600 pixels Hamamatsu MPPC, error bars are within the point sured for LSO crystal with 14400 pixels Hamamatsu MPPC.
size.
TABLE III
RESULTS OF LSO GAMMA-RAY SPECTROMETRY MEASUREMENTS
TABLE IV
LIGHT OUTPUT OF THE LSO PIXEL CRYSTAL AND PHOTON DETECTION
EFFICIENCY OF MPPC PHOTODETECTORS
Fig. 9. LSO light pulse at the output of MPPC with 3600 pixels, as observed
at a digital scope (Tektronix TDS5034B).
Fig. 8. Time resolution spectra for LSO crystal measured with Hamamatsu
MPPC 14400 and 3600 pixels detector in comparison to the XP2020Q PMT.
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