Comparison of Silicon Photomultiplier Characteristics using Automated Test Setups

Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) are photo-sensors consisting of an array of hundreds to thousands pixels with a typical pitch of 10-100 mu m. They exhibit an excellent photon counting and time resolution. Therefore applications of SiPMs are emerging in many fields. In order to characterize SiPMs, the PRISMA Detector Lab at Mainz has established three automated test setups. Setup-A is dedicated to measure the gain, the dark count rate and the optical crosstalk probability. The temperature dependencies are characterized by operating the setup in a climate chamber. Setup-B is an optical system to measure the photon detection efficiency. Setup-C addresses the most challenging aspect of comparing SiPMs which is the uniformity of the active surface. Because of the small pixel size, a micro focus lens is attached to a picosecond laser diode to collimate the beam into the sub-structures of the sensors. A three-axis micro-positioning system moves the SiPMs into the focus of the laser spot and then automatically scans the active surfaces. In this paper we present the measurements of several SiPMs and compare their performance.