Characterization of silicon photomultipliers for their application in muon scattering tomography

Abstract

Muon scattering tomography is a non-destructive technique used to image different materials by utilizing natural cosmic ray muons. Typically it requires position-sensitive detectors with a sub-millimeter resolution to effectively distinguish high-$Z$ materials in a compact system. The plastic scintillating fiber detector is a feasible candidate and is currently being designed with one-dimensional silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) readout. In this work, we constructed experimental setups to characterize three different SiPMs from the NDL, SensL, and HPK manufacturers for optimal performance of the scintillating fiber detector. The breakdown voltage, temperature compensation factor, dark noise, and photodetection efficiency of each SiPM are evaluated and summarized. Among the SiPMs tested, the HPK SiPM demonstrated the lowest dark count rate and crosstalk probability while exhibiting the best photodetection efficiency response at the emission wavelengths of the scintillating fibers. This makes the HPK SiPM particularly well-suited to meet the requirements of the detector and serves as a reference for further customization of the one-dimensional SiPM array.