At present, silicon photoelectronic multipliers with a low voltage, high sensitivity in the visible and near infrared spectral regions, and large amplification factors are often used to record optical radiation in a wide range of intensities of the visible and near infrared spectral regions. The purpose of this article is to determine the dependence of the type of amplitude distribution of pulses, created by silicon photoelectronic multipliers, on the intensity of the recorded optical radiation. As research objects, commercially available Ketek PM 3325 and ON Semi FC 30035 silicon photomultiplier tubes have been used, as well as multipliers from a pilot batch manufactured by OJSC “INTEGRAL” (Republic of Belarus). The paper studies the amplitude distribution of voltage pulses, formed on the load resistor of silicon photoelectronic multipliers by the photocurrent for various values of the energy exposure of optical pulses. The range of values of the energy exposure of optical pulses was determined at which the amplitude distributions of these pulses have pronounced peaks. It was found out that with increasing energy exposure of the optical pulse, part of the peaks disappears. It was established that all the dependencies of the average amplitude of such pulses on the magnitude of the energy exposure of the optical pulse for silicon photomultiplier tubes have a linear section. The performed experimental studies showed that an increase in the energy exposure of optical pulses results in an increase in the dispersion of the amplitude distribution of pulses. It was found that for a linear dependence of the energy exposure of the optical pulse on the optical pulse duration in the range from 50 ns to 1 μs, the studied silicon photoelectronic multipliers formed voltage pulses of 1 μs duration with the same rising and falling edges. In this case, the average amplitude of these pulses had a linear dependence on the duration of the optical pulse. The results can be used in design of photodetector devices for monitoring the level of ionization radiation for nuclear power plants, for quantum information systems and in optical communications for transmitting information with monitoring the presence of information leakage channels.
A high speed, wide dynamic range digitizer circuit for photomultiplier tubes
