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

The operation of large arrays of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) 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 article presents a simple model to estimate the ganging scheme that gives the best signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) 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 $96\,\,6 \times 6$ mm2 SiPMs (total area 34.6 cm2, S/N $\simeq ~8$ –11). The measured results are in a good match with calculated values, predicting the possibility of achieving a clear separation of photoelectron peaks also with larger areas.