  We present a fluorescence-detection system for laser-cooled 9Be+ ions based
on silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) operated at 4 K and integrated into our
cryogenic 1.9 T multi-Penning-trap system. Our approach enables fluorescence
detection in a hermetically-sealed cryogenic Penning-trap chamber with limited
optical access, where state-of-the-art detection using a telescope and
photomultipliers at room temperature would be extremely difficult. We
characterize the properties of the SiPM in a cryocooler at 4 K, where we
measure a dark count rate below 1/s and a detection efficiency of 2.5(3) %. We
further discuss the design of our cryogenic fluorescence-detection trap, and
analyze the performance of our detection system by fluorescence spectroscopy of
9Be+ ion clouds during several runs of our experiment.
