Just in case anybody is looking for the ebay listing..
http://www.ebay.com/usr/abercoPostage to the rest of the world...... Ouch!
did order 2 though, and will frame them if they arrive intact.
Reason for the detector saturating is internal opamp saturating, as the massive signal exceeds the common mode voltage of the amplifier, either on chip next to the photodiode, or the one outside doing current measuring. A possible solution is to install an optical switch ( though at the cost of the sensitivity going down a lot) to blank the optical path during laser firing. You can use a second detector as well so you get the rest of the data, and this lower sensitivity data from the dead period should still be usable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro-optic_modulatorThe original use depends on the start of the pulse, and is specified for that. Saturation is not a worry on the typical system as they use a very good optical path to reduce leakage light. They want the first return pulse, and not the rest.