Optimizing sensitivity and dynamic range of silicon photomultipliers for frequency-domain near infrared spectroscopy

Diffuse optical imaging and tomography based upon frequency-domain near-infrared spectroscopy (fdNIRS) is used to noninvasively measure tissue structure and function through quantitative absolute measurements of tissue optical absorption and scattering. Here we describe how utilizing a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) detector for fdNIRS improves performance. We discuss the operation of SiPMs, how they differ from other fdNIRS photodetectors, and show theoretically that SiPMs offer similar sensitivity to photomultiplier tube (PMT) detectors while having a higher dynamic range and lower cost, size, and operating voltage. With respect to avalanche photodiode (APD) detectors, theoretical and experimental data shows drastically increased signal to noise ratio performance, up to 25dB on human breast, head, and muscle tissue. Finally, we extend the dynamic range (∼10dB) of the SiPM through a nonlinear calibration technique which reduced absorption error by a mean 16 percentage points.