Electrical – Extrapolating parameters for SPICE model for a Silicon Photomultiplier

feature extractionltspicephotosensor

I've been working on a circuit involving a silicon photomultiplier, but I'm having trouble modeling the SiPM in LTspice. I found an article below that shows a proposed model for an SiPM in SPICE:

Article: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168900213007389

My problem is that I don't know how to extrapolate parameters for the model, such as the quenching resistance and capacitance as well as the inner junction capacitance and the internal resistance. I'm trying to model it based off of the MicroFJ-60035 SiPM provided by SensL found here:

http://sensl.com/products/j-series/

However, the parameters that they give don't really tell me much about the necessary parameters for the SPICE model directly. How can I get the parameters needed from the datasheet? As a reference, my circuit that I am trying to build is the recommended readout circuit found in the user manual.

Best Answer

I don't understand these types of sensors but I have worked on similar sensors and spice models. The best I can tell you is match up the waveform in the datasheet with the one in the model. Sometimes you have to match models up by trial and error, sometimes all the parameters are there. A lot of the parameters in this paper are on the datasheet, get some smarts and find them. I don't have a lot of time for this question but I'll give you a head start. You need to math these figures up, your spice model should look like the "Standard Output Pulse Shape"

Secondly: The overvoltage is given in the model as \$V_{ov}= V_k-V_{BD}\$, in the datasheet its listed as \$V_{br} +2.5\$ (as an example, its model dependent) and \$V_{br}\$ is nominally 24.5V.

It sounds like you need to spend some time reading the paper, but this should give you a good start.

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