Light Pollution Intensity Monitoring with Novel Multi-pixel Silicon Photon Detectors

Abstract

Nowadays, numerous fields such as Environmental sciences, High Energy Physics, medical imaging devices, portable radiation detectors, portable light intensity monitors etc., require a robust, miniature, reliable and readily available photon detector that is stable in a variety of environments, such as the presence of strong magnetic fields or abrupt light lever changes. The recently available ~1mm2 active area Multi-pixel Photon Counter (MPPC) sensors, produced by Hamamatsu Photonics, have been found to be reliable and an attractive choice for such applications. The following sensor characteristics have been thoroughly tested by a number of different institutions: gain, dark noise, detection efficiency, reliability. These appear to be stable; in addition, the characteristic spread between numerous devices was assessed. Sensors with larger area are being developed for imaging and direct-to-scintillator coupling purposes