Intense Vacuum-Ultraviolet and Infrared Scintillation of Liquid Ar-Xe Mixtures

Abstract

Vacuum ultraviolet light emission from xenon-doped liquid argon is described in the context of liquid noble gas particle detectors. Xenon concentrations in liquid argon from 0.1 ppm to 1000 ppm were studied. The energy transfer from the second excimer continuum of argon ($\sim$127 nm) to the second excimer continuum of xenon ($\sim$174 nm) is observed by recording optical emission spectra. The transfer almost saturates at a xenon concentration of $\sim$10 ppm for which, in addition, an intense emission in the infrared at a peak wavelength of 1.17 $\mu$m with (13000$\pm$4000) photons per MeV deposited by electrons had been found. The corresponding value for the VUV emission at a peak wavelength of 174 nm (second excimer continuum of xenon) is determined to be (20000$\pm$6000) photons per MeV electron energy deposited. Under these excitation conditions pure liquid argon emits (22000$\pm$3000) photons per MeV electron energy deposited at a peak wavelength of 127nm. An electron-beam induced emission spectrum for the 10 ppm Ar-Xe liquid mixture ranging from 115 nm to 3.5 $\mu$m is presented. VUV emission spectra from xenon-doped liquid argon with exponentially varied xenon concentrations from 0.1 ppm to 1000 ppm are also shown. Time structure measurements of the light emissions at well-defined wavelength positions in the vacuum ultraviolet as well as in the near-infrared are presented.

arXiv comment6 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (6)

• The scintillation of liquid argon
• DEAP-3600 Dark Matter Search at SNOLAB
• Attenuation of vacuum ultraviolet light in liquid argon
• Table-top setup for investigating the scintillation properties of liquid argon
• Ion-beam excitation of liquid argon
• Intense Infrared Scintillation of Liquid Ar-Xe Mixtures

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• Doping Liquid Argon with Xenon in ProtoDUNE Single-Phase: Effects on Scintillation Light
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• Batch VUV4 Characterization for the SBC-LAr10 scintillating bubble chamber
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• SBC-SNOLAB scintillation system and SiPM implementation for dark matter searches