SiPM optical crosstalk amplification due to scintillator crystal: effects on timing performance

For a given photon detection efficiency (PDE), the primary, Poisson distributed, dark count rate of the detector (DCR0) is one of the most limiting factors affecting the timing resolution of a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) in the scintillation light readout. If the effects of DCR0 are removed through a suitable baseline compensation algorithm or by cooling, it is possible to clearly observe another phenomenon that limits the PDE, and thus the timing resolution of the detector. It is caused by the optical crosstalk of the SiPM, which is significantly increased by the presence of the scintillator. In this paper, we describe this phenomenon, which is also easily observed from the reverse I-V curve of the device, and we relate it to the measured coincidence resolving time in 511 keV gamma-ray measurements. We discuss its consequences on the SiPM design and, in particular, we observe that there is an optimal cell size, dependent on both SiPM and crystal parameters, that maximizes the PDE in presence of optical crosstalk. Finally, we report on a crosstalk simulator developed to study the phenomenon and we compare the simulation results obtained for different SiPM technologies, featuring different approaches to the reduction of the crosstalk.