Development of an optical photon-counting imager with a monolithic Geiger Avalanche Photodiode array

We have developed a sensor system based on an optical photon-counting imager with high timing resolution, aiming for highly time-variable astronomical phenomena. The detector is a monolithic Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode array customized in a Multi-Pixel Photon Counter with a response time on the order of nanoseconds. This paper evaluates the basic performance of the sensor and confirms the gain linearity, uniformity, and low dark count. We demonstrate the system’s ability to detect the period of a flashing light-emitting diode, using a data acquisition system developed to obtain the light curve with a time bin of 100 μs. The Crab pulsar was observed using a 35-cm telescope without cooling, and the equipment detected optical pulses with a period consistent with the data from the radio ephemeris. Although improvements to the system will be necessary for more reliability, the system has been proven to be a promising device for exploring the time-domain optical astronomy.