Wavelength-Shifting Performance of Polyethylene Naphthalate Films in a Liquid Argon Environment

Abstract

Liquid argon is commonly used as a detector medium for neutrino physics and dark matter experiments in part due to its copious scintillation light production in response to its excitation and ionization by charged particle interactions. As argon scintillation appears in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) regime and is difficult to detect, wavelength-shifting materials are typically used to convert VUV light to visible wavelengths more easily detectable by conventional means. In this work, we examine the wavelength-shifting and optical properties of poly(ethylene naphthalate) (PEN), a recently proposed alternative to tetraphenyl butadiene (TPB), the most widely-used wavelength-shifter in argon-based experiments. In a custom cryostat system with well-demonstrated geometric and response stability, we use 128~nm argon scintillation light to examine various PEN-including reflective samples' light-producing capabilities, and study the stability of PEN when immersed in liquid argon. The best-performing PEN-including test reflector was found to produce 34% as much visible light as a TPB-including reference sample, with widely varying levels of light production between different PEN-including test reflectors. Plausible origins for these variations, including differences in optical properties and molecular orientation, are then identified using additional measurements. Unlike TPB-coated samples, PEN-coated samples did not produce long-timescale light collection increases associated with solvation or suspension of wavelength-shifting material in bulk liquid argon.

arXiv comment21 pages, 9 figures. Minor edits as suggested by reviewers. Replaced most usages of inches with SI units. Fix a typo in the legend on Figure 9. Other minor revisions

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Direct comparison of PEN and TPB wavelength shifters in a liquid argon detector
• R&D of Wavelength-Shifting Reflectors and Characterization of the Quantum Efficiency of Tetraphenyl Butadiene and Polyethylene Naphthalate in Liquid Argon
• Development of a novel, windowless, amorphous selenium based photodetector for use in liquid noble detectors
• Optical properties of low background PEN structural components for the LEGEND-200 experiment
• First principles studies of the surface and opto-electronic properties of ultra-thin t-Se
• Performance of an Optical TPC Geant4 Simulation with Opticks GPU-Accelerated Photon Propagation
• Development of wavelength-shifting PEN foils for next generation experiments
• Demonstration of the light collection stability of a PEN-based wavelength shifting reflector in a tonne scale liquid argon detector
• Snowmass Instrumentation Frontier IF08 Topical Group Report: Noble Element Detectors