Investigation of a photon counting avalanche photodiode from Hamamatsu photonics

Multi-cell avalanche photodiodes (APDs) operating in Geiger mode have been shown to be a very promising alternative to photomultiplier tubes for the detection of single photons at room temperature. Like a photomultiplier they have high gain and a fast rise time and they are insensitive to pickup. Beyond it they operate in high magnetic fields, are compact and need a relatively low bias voltage. It is expected that the MOS production technique makes them cheap. Recently PSI and Hamamatsu Photonics worked together for the development of a radiation-hard APD for CMS ECAL and had very good success. The development continued based on a similar design for a photon counting multielement Geiger-mode APD with an area of 1×1 mm2. The properties of this device have been measured and will be reported.