Design and characterization of a fast output amplifier for Silicon Photomultipliers

Abstract

A voltage amplifier, based on the BFU500XRR NPN transistor in a common-emitter configuration, was developed for the readout of the fast output of an ONSEMI MicroFC-10035 Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM). This amplifier was tested and characterized under dark and illuminated SiPM conditions. For the design presented in this work, a Gain of $(20.0\pm 0.7)$ dB and a rise time of $(768\pm 10)$ ps were achieved for one amplifier stage and a Gain of $(38.3\pm 0.7)$ dB and rise time of $(1155\pm 16)$ ps was achieved for two cascaded stages. In addition, the linearity of both topologies was verified and the measured Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) was ($21.9\pm 0.4$) dB and ($18.8\pm 0.5$) dB for the one-stage and two-stage amplifiers, respectively. This design provides a cheap and scalable (weight and size) alternative to other fast output amplifiers that are used when operating SiPMs fast outputs. These characteristics make this design ideal for space applications.