Opt Lett. 2020 Apr 15;45(8):2299-2302. doi: 10.1364/OL.390050.
Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) are an emerging solid-state alternative to photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) for low light detection, with similar gain but lower cost and lower operating voltage. We demonstrate coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) imaging in a side-by-side comparison of an uncooled SiPM with an uncooled multialkali PMT as well as a state-of-the-art cooled GaAsP PMT. We determine the optimum reverse-bias voltage for acquiring the best signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for CARS imaging of lipids at ${2850};{{\rm cm}^{ - 1}}$2850cm. We find that despite the higher dark counts, the SNR of CARS images acquired with the uncooled SiPM biased at an optimum voltage is better than that of the multialkali PMT and close to that of the cooled GaAsP PMT (${\sim}{1.5}$∼1.5 and ${\sim}{0.8}$∼0.8 times, respectively). This is due to the higher gain and lower excess noise factor related to the pulse height variability in the SiPM.
硅光电倍增管（SiPM）是一种新兴的固态光电倍增管（PMT）替代品，可用于低光探测，具有相似的增益，但成本更低，工作电压更低。我们通过并排比较未冷却的 SiPM 与未冷却的多碱 PMT 以及最先进的冷却 GaAsP PMT，展示了相干反斯托克斯拉曼散射（CARS）成像。我们确定了最佳反向偏置电压，以获取在 ${2850};{{\rm cm}^{ - 1}}$2850cm 处对脂质进行 CARS 成像的最佳信噪比（SNR）。我们发现，尽管暗计数较高，但在最佳电压下偏置的未冷却 SiPM 获得的 CARS 图像的 SNR 优于多碱 PMT，并且接近冷却 GaAsP PMT（分别约为 1.5 和 0.8 倍）。这是由于 SiPM 中与脉冲高度变化相关的更高增益和更低的额外噪声系数所致。
