Single Photon Counting with Silicon Photomultipliers, shortening systems and incoherent illumination

In this work it is shown the benefit of using pulse shortening systems for conforming photodetection pulses provided by Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs). One of the main drawbacks when using SiPMs is the slow falling edge in the detection signal which can reach even hundreds of nanoseconds. Pulses obtained when using the shortening systems proposed here are single narrow peaks, with full width at half maximum (FWHM) around 10 ns, preserving the photonic modulation and with good pseudo-gaussian shape, single polarity and low ringing. Different tests are presented to illustrate the advantage of these systems in the detection of single photons emitted in short, incoherent pulses. [DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2971/jeos.2012.12014]