Advances in solid state photon detectors

Semiconductor photodiodes were developed in the early `Forties approximately at the time when the photomultiplier tube became a commercial product (RCA 1939). Only in recent years, with the invention of the Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes, have the semiconductor photo detectors reached sensitivity comparable to that of photomultiplier tubes. The evolution started in the `Sixties with the p-i-n (PIN) photodiode, a very successful device, which is still used in many detectors for high energy physics and a large number of other applications like radiation detection and medical imaging. The next step was the development of the avalanche photodiode (APD) leading to a substantial reduction of noise but not yet achieving single photon response. The weakest light flashes that can be detected by the PIN diode need to contain several hundreds of photons. An improvement of the sensitivity by 2 orders of magnitude was achieved by the development of the avalanche photodiode, a device with internal gain. At the end of the millennium, the semiconductor detectors evolved with the Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode into highly sensitive devices, which have an internal gain comparable to the gain of photomultiplier tubes and a response to single photons. A review of the semiconductor photo detector design and development, the properties and problems, some applications and a speculative outlook on the future evolution will be presented.