Performance Study of a Wide-Area SiPM Array, ASICs Controlled

In this paper, the capabilities of a wide-area gamma ray photosensor based on a SiPM array are investigated. For this purpose, we have mounted an array of 144
$(12\times12)$
SiPMs with individual active area of
$3 \times 3~\hbox{mm}^{2}$
and a pitch of
$4.2~\hbox{mm}$
, thus covering an active area of
$50.2 \times 50.2~\hbox{mm}^{2}$
. The measurements were performed by coupling the SiPM array to LYSO crystal arrays of different pixel size (
$2\times2~\hbox{mm}^{2}$
,
$1.5 \times 1.5~\hbox{mm}^{2}$
, and
$1 \times 1~\hbox{mm}^{2}$
) and 10–12 mm thicknesses. The SiPM array was controlled by means of three ASICs, and the SiPM signals were multiplexed in order to determine the gamma ray impact position by means of implementing the Anger logic algorithm in the ASIC. The optimum bias voltage and temperature dependence of the gamma ray sensor were determined. An energy resolution as good as 8%, for individual crystal pixels, were reached at 5 V overvoltage. The ASICs design allows one to “activate” different photosensor array areas. This feature has been used to evaluate the detector performance as a function of the crystal pixel size and the photosensor dark noise contribution. In this work we also show the system capability to provide depth-of-interaction (DOI) information by means of implementing a two-layer staggered approach. We have found that accurate DOI information is obtained when the ASICs enabled an SiPM active area as high as
$32\times 32~\hbox{mm}^{2}$
(
$8 \times 8$
SiPMs).