Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes as photodetectors in Cherenkov astronomy

The progress in the development of Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes (G-APD) has resulted in devices which show great promise for Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT). In the course of the First G-APD Camera Test (FACT) project with the purpose to construct a G-APD based camera, their characteristics are analysed and measured in detail. The angle dependence of the photon detection efficiency was measured and found to be flat. The effects of saturation and cross-talk on the reconstruction of the number of detected photons was studied. Since these effects are of a statistical nature, the reconstructed number is limited in its precision. For small numbers of photons, crosstalk is the limiting factor. For photon numbers comparable to or higher than the number of cells of the G-APD, the main limitation is the saturation