Detection of liquid xenon scintillation light with a Silicon Photomultiplier

Abstract

We have studied the feasibility of a silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) to detect liquid xenon (LXe) scintillation light. The SiPM was operated inside a small volume of pure LXe, at -95 degree Celsius, irradiated with an internal Am-241 alpha source. The gain of the SiPM at this temperature was estimated to be 1.8 x 10^6 with bias voltage at 52 V. Based on the geometry of the setup, the quantum efficiency of the SiPM was estimated to be 22% at the Xe wavelength of 178 nm. The low excess noise factor, high single photoelectron detection efficiency, and low bias voltage of SiPMs make them attractive alternative UV photon detection devices to photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) for liquid xenon detectors, especially for experiments requiring a very low energy detection threshold, such as neutralino dark matter searches.

References in corpus (2)

• The XENON Dark Matter Search Experiment
• Performance of a Large Area Avalanche Photodiode in a Liquid Xenon Ionization and Scintillation Chamber

Cited by in corpus (19)

• The XENON100 Dark Matter Experiment
• Liquid noble gas detectors for low energy particle physics
• A Next-Generation Liquid Xenon Observatory for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics
• Design and Performance of the XENON10 Dark Matter Experiment
• Observation of Anti-correlation between Scintillation and Ionization for MeV Gamma-Rays in Liquid Xenon
• Advances in Cryogenic Avalanche Detectors
• Characterisation of a silicon photomultiplier device for applications in liquid argon based neutrino physics and dark matter searches
• Direct observation of avalanche scintillations in a THGEM-based two-phase Ar avalanche detector using Geiger-mode APD
• Development of an anti-Compton veto for HPGe detectors operated in liquid argon using Silicon Photo-Multipliers
• Geiger Mode APD performance in a cryogenic two-phase Ar avalanche detector based on THGEMs
• Novel Photo-Detectors and Photo-Detector Systems
• MPPC versus MRS APD in two-phase Cryogenic Avalanche Detectors
• First Imaging Results of a Bubble-assisted Liquid Hole Multiplier with SiPM readout in Liquid Xenon
• Two-phase xenon emission detector with electron multiplier and optical readout by multipixel avalanche Geiger photodiodes
• Test of SensL SiPM coated with NOL-1 wavelength shifter in liquid xenon
• A large facility for photosensors test at cryogenic temperature
• Performance degradation of Geiger-mode APDs at cryogenic temperatures
• A Novel Low-Background Photomultiplier Tube Developed for Xenon Based Detectors
• On the Evaluation of Silicon Photomultipliers for Use as Photosensors in Liquid Xenon Detectors