Radio Frequency and DC High Voltage Breakdown of High Pressure Helium, Argon, and Xenon

Abstract

Motivated by the possibility of guiding daughter ions from double beta decay events to single-ion sensors for barium tagging, the NEXT collaboration is developing a program of R&D to test radio frequency (RF) carpets for ion transport in high pressure xenon gas. This would require carpet functionality in regimes at higher pressures than have been previously reported, implying correspondingly larger electrode voltages than in existing systems. This mode of operation appears plausible for contemporary RF-carpet geometries due to the higher predicted breakdown strength of high pressure xenon relative to low pressure helium, the working medium in most existing RF carpet devices. In this paper we present the first measurements of the high voltage dielectric strength of xenon gas at high pressure and at the relevant RF frequencies for ion transport (in the 10 MHz range), as well as new DC and RF measurements of the dielectric strengths of high pressure argon and helium gases at small gap sizes. We find breakdown voltages that are compatible with stable RF carpet operation given the gas, pressure, voltage, materials and geometry of interest.

References in corpus (10)

• Sensitivity of NEXT-100 to neutrinoless double beta decay
• Demonstration of Single Barium Ion Sensitivity for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay using Single Molecule Fluorescence Imaging
• An RF-only ion-funnel for extraction from high-pressure gases
• Spectroscopy of Ba and Ba${}^{+}$ deposits in solid xenon for barium tagging in nEXO
• Electron Drift and Longitudinal Diffusion in High Pressure Xenon-Helium Gas Mixtures
• An apparatus to manipulate and identify individual Ba ions from bulk liquid Xe
• Mobility and Clustering of Barium Ions and Dications in High Pressure Xenon Gas
• High Voltage Insulation and Gas Absorption of Polymers in High Pressure Argon and Xenon Gases
• Ba-ion extraction from a high pressure Xe gas for double-beta decay studies with EXO
• Progress toward Barium Tagging in High Pressure Xenon Gas with Single Molecule Fluorescence Imaging

Cited by in corpus (2)

• A Review of Basic Energy Reconstruction Techniques in Liquid Xenon and Argon Detectors for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics Using NEST
• Dielectric Strength of Noble and Quenched Gases for High Pressure Time Projection Chambers