Developing an aspherical lens array system to halve the production cost of large-area silicon photomultiplier arrays

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K13801
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Particle/Nuclear/Cosmic ray/Astro physics
• Research Institution: Nagoya University
• Principal Investigator: Okumura Akira 名古屋大学, 宇宙地球環境研究所, 助教 (90645011)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: ガンマ線 / 宇宙線 / 半導体光検出器 / SiPM / チェレンコフ望遠鏡アレイ / CTA

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We have developed a UV-transparent lens array system to improve the effective photodetection efficiency of multi-pixel silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) arrays. Array type SiPMs currently available in the market have dead area between adjacent pixels, resulting in about 15% photon loss. Putting a lens array on the SiPM surface can guide photons from the dead area to the sensitive area, enabling us to improve the gamma-ray detection efficiency of ground-based gamma-ray telescopes or to reduce the production cost of photodetectors. Our prototype lens array showed improvement of photodetection efficiency by 10 to 20% in the angle-of-incidence range of 0 to 70 degrees.

Free Research Field

宇宙線物理学