Development of a novel, windowless, amorphous selenium based photodetector for use in liquid noble detectors

Abstract

Detection of the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) scintillation light produced by liquid noble elements is a central challenge in order to fully exploit the available timing, topological, and calorimetric information in detectors leveraging these media. In this paper, we characterize a novel, windowless amorphous selenium based photodetector with direct sensitivity to VUV light. We present here the manufacturing and experimental setup used to operate this detector at low transport electric fields (2.7-5.2 V/$\mu$m) and across a wide range of temperatures (77K-290K). This work shows that the first proof-of-principle device windowless amorphous selenium is robust under cryogenic conditions, responsive to VUV light at cryogenic temperatures, and preserves argon purity. These findings motivate a continued exploration of amorphous selenium devices for simultaneous detection of scintillation light and ionization charge in noble element detectors.

References in corpus (8)

• First results on ProtoDUNE-SP liquid argon time projection chamber performance from a beam test at the CERN Neutrino Platform
• Evidence of delayed light emission of TetraPhenyl Butadiene excited by liquid Argon scintillation light
• A Review of Basic Energy Reconstruction Techniques in Liquid Xenon and Argon Detectors for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics Using NEST
• Wavelength shifters for applications in liquid argon detectors
• Pulse-shape discrimination and energy resolution of a liquid-argon scintillator with xenon doping
• Performance of Hamamatsu VUV4 SiPMs for detecting liquid argon scintillation
• Wavelength-Shifting Performance of Polyethylene Naphthalate Films in a Liquid Argon Environment
• R&D of Wavelength-Shifting Reflectors and Characterization of the Quantum Efficiency of Tetraphenyl Butadiene and Polyethylene Naphthalate in Liquid Argon