Development of High-Speed Photon Counting Module Based on Passive Quenching Mode Multi-pixel Photon Counter

The newly developed multi-pixel photon counter (MPPC), which is essentially single-photon avalanche photodiodes (SPAD) array, has a significant application prospect in the field of laser detection because of its unique room-temperature photon number resolution capability. The working modes of SPAD are usually divided into active quenching (AQ) mode and passive quenching (PQ) mode. It is generally believed that the PQ mode has a long recovery time and a low photon counting rate (PCR), making it unsuitable for high-speed photon counting situations. This paper demonstrated a photon counting module based on a specially designed passive quenching MPPC. The small-area SPAD cells and the bulk resistance quenching mode greatly reduce the recovery time of the SPAD cells, enabling the PCR even surpassing that of the photon counting modules in AQ mode. The PCR of the developed MPPC module can reach more than 80 Mcps just in the PQ mode, which has obvious advantages in PCR and has a good application prospect especially in space target detection.