Our Technology
Solid-State Low Light Sensors
Solid state detectors are the future in low light sensing. The performance of SensL's solid-state Silicon Photomultiplier (SPM), and Photon Counting detectors surpasses the current standard detector - the photomultiplier tube (PMT) - and the avalanche photodiode (APD) and PIN photodiode in many applications. SensL's broad range of detector technologies in analog SPM and digital Photon Counting are designed to suit the current and emerging market for low light sensors. At the core of every SensL detector is a low light sensing silicon photodiode that is capable of converting single photons into a measurable output signal. SensL uses dedicated fabrication processes to manufacture these sensors to provide the highest degree of sensitivity and device uniformity, which is only possible with silicon CMOS processing techniques from SensL.
SensL's detectors offer several benefits including:
- Small form factor, which allows miniaturized systems. High gain amplification is on-chip to simplify integration with external electronics.
- Immunity to damage by large photon flux. For example, direct sunlight does not damage the sensor.
- Low operating voltages of 30-50V as compared to APD and PMT detectors, which typically use hundreds or thousands of volts.
- Scalable to large area arrays to provide the ultimate flexibility.
- Unsurpassed uniformity between detectors because of the advanced silicon processing techniques employed to fabricate the core detector.
- Higher detection efficiency than PMT detectors. Detecting more photons results in a high signal to noise in demanding applications.
Beyond the basic core silicon, SensL provides a full range of signal preamplifiers and data acquisition electronics, which allows these next generation sensors to be rapidly deployed in any low light sensing OEM application. Please see our References section for a list of recent work published by SensL authors and our SPM Technical and Application Notes section, which describes in detail many of the detectors and their operation characteristics.