Evaluation of different types of avalanche photo diodes from Hamamatsu and Perkin-Elmer

Avalanche photodiodes (APD) could replace photomultiplier tubes (PMT) in some areas like positron emission tomography (PET). It is therefore important to study their performance. In this study, we have tested two types of APD's, the Hamamatsu S5345W and the Perkin-Elmer C30719E. We evaluated and compared the dark current, the gain and the excess noise factor of these two APD types.