Characterization method to achieve simultaneous absolute PDE measurements of all pixels of an ASTRI Mini-Array camera tile

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel method for simultaneously measuring the absolute Photon Detection Efficiency (PDE) of all pixels in an ASTRI Mini-Array camera tile, improving testing speed and accuracy.

Contribution

It introduces a new optical setup and calibration approach to measure PDE of all pixels simultaneously, including the use of a calibrated SiPM as reference.

Findings

Simultaneous PDE measurement of all pixels is feasible with the proposed setup.

The method enables faster and more accurate quality testing of SiPM tiles.

Using a calibrated SiPM as reference simplifies the calibration process.

Abstract

Recently, the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) has placed a contract with Hamamatsu Photonics to acquire hundreds of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) tiles to build 10 cameras with 37 tiles each for the ASTRI Mini-Array (MA) project. Each tile is made up of 8x8 pixels of 7x7 mm2 with micro-cells of 75um. To check the quality of the delivered tiles a complex and acurate test plan has been studied. The possibility to simultaneously analyse as many pixels as possible becomes of crucial im-portance. Dark Count Rate (DCR) versus over-voltage and versus temperature and Optical Cross Talk (OCT) versus over-voltage can be easily measured simultaneously for all pixels because they are carried out in dark conditions. On the contrary, simultaneous Photon Detection Efficiency (PDE) measurement of all pixels of a tile is not easily achievable and needs an appropriate optical set-up. Simultaneous measurements have the advantage of speeding up the entire procedure and enabling quick PDE compari-son of all the tile pixels. The paper describes the preliminary steps to guarantee an accurate absolute PDE measurement and the investigation the capa-bility of the electronics to obtain simultaneous PDE measurements. It also demonstrates the possibility of using a calibrated SiPM as reference detector instead of a calibrated photodiode. The method to achieve accurate absolute PDE of four central pixels of a tile is also described.