Research on silicon photomultipliers for various applications

The silicon photomultiplier is a novel semiconductor photo sensor which is operated in Geiger mode. It has high quantum efficiency, wide spectral range, low noise coupled to high gains, and fast time response. In the last few years, Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) have become very popular in the detector research community because of these promising new features. Our group is currently evaluating and designing new devices for a pplications ranging from high energy physics and astroparticle physics, to earth imaging and gas and plasma spectroscopy. In this work device signal and current characterizations performed at various temperatures are presented. We have used fast laser pulsing to ascertain the time characteristics of the devices. A comparison between custom and commercially available devices is also made.