A theoretical study of digital silicon photomultiplier utilization in diffuse optical imaging systems

Digital silicon photomultiplier (dSiPM) is introduced for diffuse optical imaging (DOI) applications instead of conventional photomultiplier tubes and avalanche photodiodes (APDs) as a state-of-the-art detector. According to the low-level light regime in DOI applications, high sensitivity and high dynamic range (DR) image sensors are needed for DOI systems. dSiPM is proposed as a developing detector which can detect low-level lights. Also, an accurate equation is obtained for calculating the DR of dSiPMs. Different dSiPMs and the corresponding benefits are studied for DOI applications. Furthermore, a 120 dB DR dSiPM is chosen for use in DOI systems. It is shown that dSiPMs can be utilized in DOI configurations such as time domain (TD), frequency domain (FD) and continuous wave (CW) systems. Ultimately, by utilizing dSiPM in DOI systems, the DOI method can be used for thoracic imaging due to the high DR and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the detector.