Front-end Electronics and Optimal Ganging Schemes for Single Photon Detection with Large Arrays of SiPMs in Liquid Argon

TL;DR

This paper develops a model for optimal SiPM ganging schemes and designs a low-noise cryogenic amplifier, enabling effective single photon detection with large SiPM arrays in liquid argon.

Contribution

It introduces a simple model to optimize SiPM ganging for maximum SNR and validates it with a custom low-noise amplifier for cryogenic environments.

Findings

Achieved high single photon sensitivity with 96 SiPMs

Amplifier noise level of 0.25-0.37 nV/√Hz at cryogenic temperatures

Model accurately predicts optimal ganging schemes for large SiPM arrays

Abstract

The operation of large arrays of silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) in tanks of noble liquids requires low noise, low power front-end amplifiers, able to operate reliably in the cryogenic environment. A suitable amplifier needs to be paired with a proper SiPM ganging scheme, meaning the series/parallel combination of SiPMs at its input. This paper presents a simple model to estimate the ganging scheme that gives the best signal to noise ratio once the basic electrical characteristics of the SiPM and amplifier are known. To prove the validity of the model, we used an amplifier based on discrete components, which achieves a white voltage noise in the 0.25-0.37 nV/$\surd$Hz range at liquid nitrogen temperature, while drawing 2-5 mW of power. Combined with the optimal ganging scheme obtained with the model, the amplifier demonstrated excellent single photon sensitivity up to 96 6x6 mm$^2$ SiPMs (total area 34.6 cm$^2$, S/N $\simeq$ 8-11). The measured results are in a good match with calculated values, predicting the possibility to achieve a clear separation of photoelectron peaks also with larger areas.