Electro-optical characterization of MPPC detectors for the ASTRI Cherenkov telescope camera

This work addresses a systematic and in-depth electro-optical characterization of the Multi-Pixel Photon Counter (MPPC) sensors constituting the camera detection system at the focal plane of the ASTRI telescope prototype. The paper reports the experimental results of a large set of measurements on the MPPC devices in order to provide a reliable qualification of the detector performance and evaluate its compliance with the telescope focal plane requirements. In particular, breakdown voltage, internal gain, dark count rate, cross-talk and extra-charge probability, and absolute photon detection efficiency measurements are performed on the basic sensor device unit as a function of the detector operating conditions.