Studies of silicon photomultipliers at cryogenic temperatures

We investigate the behavior of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) at low temperatures: I-V characteristics, breakdown voltage, dark noise, afterpulsing, crosstalk, pulse shape, gain and photon detection efficiency are studied as a function of temperature in the range 50K < T < 320 K. We discuss our measurements on the basis of the temperature dependent properties of silicon and of the models related to carrier generation, transport and multiplication in high electric field. We conclude that SiPMs provide an excellent alternative to vacuum tube photomultipliers (PMTs) in low temperature environments, even better than in room temperature ones: in particular they excel in the interval 100K < T < 200K. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.