Extensive studies of MRS APDs for plastic scintillator muon veto detectors of cryogenic experiments

Low background experiments need active muon veto detectors to shield them from cosmic muons. Plastic scintillator panels with WLS fiber and multi-pixel Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes readout are widely used in such experiments due to their compactness and robustness. In this paper, results from the study of the basic MRS APD parameters, such as breakdown voltages, quenching resistors, internal gain and dark count rates are presented, as well as temperature dependencies of some of these parameters. In a small fraction of the MRS APDs, some strange dips in the I-V curves just preceding the breakdown voltage point have been observed.