Radiation Hard GaAs Photomultiplier Chip(TM)

The photodetectors used to count scintillations from energetic elementary particles are vulnerable to radiation. Historically, this has meant that high-voltage/high-vacuum tubes, such as photomultiplier tubes and micro-channel plates, had to be used instead of solid-state detectors, despite their being bulky, fragile, expensive, and inefficient. In this project, an intrinsically radiation-hard Photomultiplier Chip¿ will be developed using an array of high efficiency, gallium-indium-phosphide-based Geiger mode detectors, which sum their digital outputs to provide grayscale intensity readings with sensitivity down to single photons. By the end of Phase II, a large-area, radiation-hard, solid-state photodetector will be demonstrated. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee Affordable, fast, solid-state photodetection with single-photon sensitivity and a wide dynamic range promises significantly better price performance for PET and MRI/PET tomography, detection of special nuclear materials, and particle physics experiments.