Patent 7495205 was granted and assigned to Hinds Instruments on February, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The amount of gain applied to a photodetector such as a photomultiplier tube (PMT) is limited to an amount that does not cause the applied PMT bias voltage to overdrive, hence damage, the PMT. Techniques for limiting the PMT gain are implemented in a way that does not interfere with the precision with which the PMT gain may be established (by selection of a reference level) below that limited level.