Characterisation of a silicon photomultiplier device for applications in liquid argon based neutrino physics and dark matter searches

Abstract

The performance of a silicon photomultiplier has been assessed at low temperature in order to evaluate its suitability as a scintillation readout device in liquid argon particle physics detectors. The gain, measured as 2.1×10 6 for a constant over-voltage of 4V was measured between 25°C and -196°C and found to be invariant with temperature, the corresponding single photoelectron dark count rate reducing from 1MHz to 40Hz respectively. Following multiple thermal cycles no deterioration in the device performance was observed.The photon detection efficiency (PDE) was assessed as a function of photon wavelength and temperature. For an over-voltage of 4V, the PDE, found again to be invariant with temperature, was measured as 25% for 460nm photons and 11% for 680nm photons.Device saturation due to high photon flux rate, observed both at room temperature and -196°C, was again found to be independent of temperature. Although the output signal remained proportional to the input signal so long as the saturation limit was not exceeded, the photoelectron pulse resolution and decay time increased slightly at -196°C.

Optimizing timing performance of silicon photomultiplier based scintillation detectors

“…(2) SiPM-small decrease in PDE over the temperature range (Collazuol et al 2011); gain of SiPM as function of overvoltage has been shown to be independent from temperature and although dark counts are reduced at lower temperature (Lightfoot et al 2008, Ramilli 2009), this effect is less pronounced due to the baseline correction already being applied. The CRT curves, however, are shifted in voltage due to the change of breakdown voltage with temperature (Buzhan 2001).…”

Черенковские Гамма-Телескопы: Прошлое, Настоящее, Будущее. Проект ALEGRO

“…Численное моделирование позво-ляет произвести оценку поверхностной плотности че-ренковских фотонов при энергиях первичных гамма-квантов около 5 GeV (см., например, [7,130]), которая показывает, что МЛФД, используемые как детекторы черенковского излучения, удовлетворяют требованиям полноценного функционирования наземных гамма-теле-скопов при таких низких энергиях первичных частиц. Основное преимущество МЛФД в сравнении с тради-ционными вакуумными ФЭУ заключается в том, что применение МЛФД позволяет проводить наблюдения в лунные ночи, что существенно увеличивает экспо-зиции исследуемых космических источников, а также в высокой квантовой эффективности -30−40% вме-сто 10−20% (см., например, [131,132]). Кроме этого, МЛФД проще в использовании, требуют значитель-но меньшего электрического напряжения и мощно-сти.…”

Point-source reconstruction with a sparse light-sensor array for optical TPC readout

“…Likewise the realistic spatial resolution of the order of one to a few millimetre, depending on hole diameter, is fully sufficient when taking into account diffusion of charges in liquid argon, see [17] and references therein. Here it is proposed to use a sparse array of existing light sensor technology, silicon photomultipliers [20], [21], in order to take fast snaphots of charged particle tracks arriving at an imaging plane. The price to pay for such a shortcut to a full digital camera option would be the requirement of reconstruction of light source locations instead of direct imaging.…”