A new type of photodetector overcomes the limitations of avalanche photodiode technology by offering amplitude and event detection, wide dynamic range, and flat spectral response, while eliminating the external quenching circuit. To achieve single-photon sensitivity, researchers have developed and customized numerous detector technologies to suit particular applications such as photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), linear and Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes (APDs), and hybrid photon detectors. The need for ever more sensitive, compact, rugged, and inexpensive optical sensors in the visible and near-infrared region of the spectrum is increasing and is particularly acute in the fields of the biological sciences, medicine, astronomy, and high-energy physics. Applications such as fluorescence and luminescence photometry, absorption spectroscopy, scintillator readout, lidar, and quantum cryptography require extremely sensitive optical sensors often in adverse environments, such as high magnetic fields.
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