Towards 10ps SPTR and Ultra-Low DCR in SiPMs Through the Combination of Microlenses and Photonic Crystals

Abstract

Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs), which emerged as all solid state, MRI compatible alternative to PMTs, can provide high miniaturization and increased timing performance. Large effort has been spent in improving the figures of merit of such devices (e.g. jitter, timing resolution, sensitivity, noise, etc.). In this paper we propose a novel approach relying on the combination of photonic crystals with microlens arrays, integrated on top of each SPAD cell in the SiPM, to collimate and focus the light generated by a scintillator, in order to improve the overall timing performance of the system so as to approach the 10ps target, while at the same time reducing the noise floor (Dark Count Rate).