Neutron radiation damage and recovery studies of SiPMs

We characterized the performance of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) before and after exposure of up to 1012 neutron/cm2 dosage. We show that the typical orders of magnitude increase of dark current upon neutron irradiation can be suppressed by operating it at a lower temperature and single-photoelectron detection capability can be restored. The required operating temperature depends on the dosage received. Furthermore, after high temperature thermal annealing, there is compelling evidence that the extrinsic dark current is lowered by orders of magnitude and single-photon detection performance are to some extent recovered at room temperature. Our experimental findings might have widespread implications for extending the functionality and the useful lifetime of current and future large scale SiPM detectors deployed in ionization radiation environment.