Comimark 5Pcs BPW34 Silicon PIN Photodiode DIP-2

Very nice gain on these. I am using it to convert light to sound, so I need sensitivity in low light like listening to the strobes on aircraft.

Great product, price and fast shipping.

Not sure if these are real Vishay products, but they work in my application.

I can't say these are genuine Vishay BPW34 Silicon PIN Photodiodes since the silicon itself is 3 mm x 3 mm, 5 mm x 5 mm including the plastic casing and pins. So, I can't trust the Vishay datasheet to match the characteristic of these little guys, but at least they work, at an affordable price. There does appear to be fingerprints on the inside of the plastic though, which can't be cleaned off by brushing the outside of the diode with a microfiber cloth.

Good sensitivity

The outputs are within 1% of each other in direct sunlight.

I’d like bigger 10mm x 10mm diodes, but these are closer to 5 x 5 mm per spec sheet. WRT reviewer’s comments on potential ESD damage, this is not a problem; PIN (p-type, intrinsic silicon, n-type) are simply diodes with an intrinsic silicon layer and as such are not particularly sensitive to static electric fields (you can find an exception to this if the device has additional circuitry, which these do not). Further, paper is not a serious threat to ESD sensitive components and as long as the relative humidity is higher than approximately 20%, you should be fine. It’s always a good idea to use grounded matts and soft ground wrist strap when working on electronics.

Needs a bright light to get it to respond. The response time was measured to be around 20-100ns, depending on the light source.