First results of systematic studies done with silicon photomultipliers

Multicell avalanche photodiode structure operated in Geiger mode usually referred as silicon photomultiplier is a new intensively developing technology for photon detection. Insensitivity to magnetic fields, low operation voltage and small size make silicon photomultipliers very attractive for high-energy physics, astrophysics and medical applications. esented results are obtained during the first steps taken in order to develop a setup and measurement procedures which allow to compare properties of diverse samples of silicon photomultipliers available on market. The response to low-intensity light was studied for silicon photomultipliers produced by CPTA (Russia), Hamamatsu (Japan), ITC-irst (Italy) and SensL (Ireland).