SIB416 Sensor Interface Board Hamamatsu S11064 MPPC

16 Nov 2011

The SIB416 sensor interface board allows up to four Hamamatsu S11064 multi-pixel photon counter (MPPC) devices to easily interface to a Vertilon PhotoniQ multichannel data acquisition system.

The devices, which are 4 x 4 silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) arrays, are inserted into receptacle pins on the bottom side of the printed circuit board where their cathode output signals are routed directly to two sensor interface board (SIB) connectors. The SIB connectors conform to Vertilon’s standard, low-noise, multi-channel, cable interconnection system.

Each connector mates to a micro-coaxial cable assembly that connects 32 device outputs to the PhotoniQ. Bias to MPPC arrays is provided on a high voltage cable by the PhotoniQ where it can be enabled and configured through the PhotoniQ graphical user interface. A special current-sense output from the bias interface circuitry is sent to a variable gain preamplifier on the SIB416 to represent the total AC charge signal measured by all four MPPC arrays. This signal, which is available to the user on an SMB jack, is fed into a user-programmable threshold leading edge discriminator. The discriminator generates a trigger signal on an SMB jack when an event exceeding a particular energy threshold is detected on any of the S11064 devices. The trigger output is typically connected to the trigger input on the PhotoniQ data acquisition system where it is used to initiate the collection of the charge signals from the sensor devices connected to the DAQ system’s inputs.

Alternatively, the trigger output can be sent to other external hardware that could perform coincidence detection or precise time-to-digital conversion. The full functionality and operation of the SIB416 is conveniently controlled through the PhotoniQ’s graphical user interface.

Intelligent software in the PhotoniQ constantly monitors the status of its SIB connectors to determine the type of sensor interface board attached to them. Once recognized, a dialog box specific to the recognized SIB is made available in the GUI through which the user has complete control over its operation.