Characterization and Optimization of silicon photomultipliers for the development of intraoperative beta probes

This work reports the results of a comprehensive study aiming to characterize and optimize the performances of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) as photodetectors for intraoperative beta detection of radiolabeled tumor tissues. In that purpose, we focused our measurements on the influence of temperature and operating voltage on dark noise (count rate and amplitude distribution), absolute photon detection efficiency and total gain of different SiPM devices from Hamamatsu. The impact of these parameters on the overall beta sensitivity of SiPM-based scintillation detectors was quantified as a function of the intensity of the incident light following a simple physical model that is shown to correspond well with measurements.