Solid state photomultipliers for biomedical imaging applications

Photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) are often used in scanning imaging systems requiring high sensitivity, due to their low noise and high gain. Solid-state photomultipliers (SSPMs), an array of independent Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes, each with an integrated quenching resistor, have shown potential to outperform PMTs in terms of signal to noise ratio (SNR) because of higher achievable photon detection efficiency and lower excessive noise factor. Here, the factors affecting SNR of commercially available PMTs and SSPMs will be compared under different wavelengths (simulating dye emissions: 500-700 nm) in order to quantify the potential performance gain when PMTs are replaced by SSPMs.