Statistical Analysis of Silicon Photomultiplier Output Signals

Silicon photomultipliers are relatively new devices designed as a matrix of single-photon avalanche detectors, which have become popular for their miniature dimensions and low operating voltage. Their superior sensitivity allows detecting low-photon-count optical pulses, e.g., in ranging and LIDAR applications. The output signal of the photomultiplier is a non-stationary stochastic process, from which a weak periodic pulse can be extracted by means of statistical processing. Using the double-exponential approximation of output avalanche pulses the paper presents a simple analytical solution to the mean and variance of the stochastic process. It is shown that even for an ideal square optical pulse the rising edge of the statistically detected signal is longer than the edge of individual avalanche pulses. The knowledge of the detected waveform can be used to design an optimum laser pulse waveform or algorithms for estimating the time of arrival. The experimental section demonstrates the proposed procedure.