4D-Tracking with Digital SiPMs

TL;DR

This paper presents the design, fabrication, and testing of a digital Silicon Photomultiplier (dSiPM) prototype capable of 4D-tracking of charged particles with high spatial and temporal resolution, enabling advanced particle detection applications.

Contribution

It introduces a monolithic CMOS-based digital SiPM with integrated features for 4D-tracking, demonstrating high resolution and efficiency in particle detection.

Findings

Spatial resolution of ~20 μm achieved.

Full-system time resolution of ~50 ps demonstrated.

Detection efficiency exceeds 99.5%.

Abstract

Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) are the state-of-the-art technology in single-photon detection with solid-state detectors. Single Photon Avalanche Diodes (SPADs), the key element of SiPMs, can now be manufactured in CMOS processes, facilitating the integration of a SPAD array into custom monolithic ASICs. This allows implementing features such as signal digitization, masking, full hit-map readout, noise suppression, and photon counting in a monolithic CMOS chip. The complexity of the off-chip readout chain is thereby reduced. These new features allow new applications for digital SiPMs, such as 4D-tracking of charged particles, where spatial resolutions of the order of $10 \mu m$ and timestamping with time resolutions of a few tens of ps are required. A prototype of a digital SiPM was designed at DESY using the LFoundry $150 nm$ CMOS technology. Various studies were carried out in the laboratory and at the DESY II test-beam facility to evaluate the sensor performance in Minimum Ionizing Particles (MIPs) detection. The direct detection of charged particles was investigated for bare prototypes and assemblies coupling dSiPMs and thin LYSO crystals. Spatial resolution $\sim20 \mu m$ and a full-system time resolution of $\sim50 ps$ are measured using bare dSiPMs in direct MIP detection. Efficiency $>99.5 \%$, low noise rate and time resolution $<1 ns$ can be reached with the thin radiator coupling.