A Technique of In-situ Annealing and Temperature Monitoring for Silicon Photomultipliers

Recently, the recovery of SiPM after radiation damage was tentatively promoted by thermal annealing with an external heat source. However, it is hard for practical applications for some specific experiments in high energy physics and space science since the vast well-installed detectors is impossible to be dismantled from a large experiment facility and implement the annealing process with a hot plate or an oven. In this paper, we present a technique of in-situ annealing and temperature monitoring for SiPMs in detail, which may provide a solution to recover the radiation damaged SiPMs and prolong the lifetime of the detectors. By applying a reverse current, the SiPM can be heated and annealed by a Joule effect; while the annealing temperature can be monitored by employing the PN junction of the same SiPM as a temperature sensor. This method may be extended to other semiconductor detectors based on PN junction, and prolong the lifetime of the detectors in a large experiment.