Reflectance of Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) for Xenon Scintillation Light

Abstract

Gaseous and liquid xenon particle detectors are being used in a number of applications including dark matter search and neutrino-less double beta decay experiments. Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is often used in these detectors both as electrical insulator and as a light reflector to improve the efficiency of detection of scintillation photons. However, xenon emits in the vacuum ultraviolet wavelength region (175 nm) where the reflecting properties of PTFE are not sufficiently known. In this work we report on measurements of PTFE reflectance, including its angular distribution, for the xenon scintillation light. Various samples of PTFE, manufactured by different processes (extruded, expanded, skived and pressed) have been studied. The data were interpreted with a physical model comprising both specular and diffuse reflections. The reflectance obtained for these samples ranges from about 47% to 66% for VUV light. Fluoropolymers, namely ETFE, FEP and PFA were also measured.

References in corpus (3)

• Detection of very small neutrino masses in double-beta decay using laser tagging
• First limits on WIMP nuclear recoil signals in ZEPLIN-II: a two phase xenon detector for dark matter detection
• Performance of a Chamber for Studying the Liquid Xenon Response to Nuclear Recoils

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