Characterization of Three High Efficiency and Blue Sensitive Silicon Photomultipliers

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We report about the optical and electrical characterization of three high efficiency and blue sensitive Silicon photomultipliers from FBK, Hamamatsu, and SensL.

• Key features of the tested devices when operated at 90% breakdown probability are peak photon detection efficiencies between 40% and 55%, temperature dependencies of gain and PDE that are less than 1%/$^{\circ}$C, dark rates of $\sim$50\,kHz/mm$^{2}$ at room temperature, afterpulsing of about 2%, and direct optical crosstalk between 6% and 20%.
• The characteristics of all three devices impressively demonstrate how the Silicon-photomultiplier technology has improved over the past ten years.
• It is further demonstrated how the voltage and temperature characteristics of a number of quantities can be parameterized on the basis of physical models.