Measurement of single-electron noise in a liquid-xenon emission detector

Akimov, D.; Александров, И С; Belov, V.; Bolozdynya, A.; Burenkov, A.; Efremenko, Y. V.; Kirsanov, M. A.; Kobyakin, A. S.; Kovalenko, A. G.; Konovalov, A. M.; Kumpan, A.; Stekhanov, V.

doi:10.1134/s002044121204001x

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The electrostatic design methodology adopted by previous experiments was thus found to be compromised. This was based on the onsets for electroluminescence and charge multiplication in LXe at 412 +10 −133 kV/cm and 725 +48 −139 kV/cm, respectively [8] (see also [9,10]), while practical LXe-TPC cathodes made from stainless steel wires have been limited to surface fields of 40-65 kV/cm [11][12][13][14][15][16]. A detector with gold-plated stainless steel wires could not operate at the design field either [17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study and mitigation of spurious electron emission from cathodic wires in noble liquid time projection chambers

Tomás

Araújo

Bailey

et al. 2018

Astroparticle Physics

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Noble liquid radiation detectors have long been afflicted by spurious electron emission from their cathodic electrodes. This phenomenon must be understood and mitigated in the next generation of liquid xenon (LXe) experiments searching for WIMP dark matter or neutrinoless double beta decay, and in the large liquid argon (LAr) detectors for the longbaseline neutrino programmes. We present a systematic study of this spurious emission involving a series of slow voltage-ramping tests on fine metal wires immersed in a two-phase xenon time projection chamber with single electron sensitivity. Emission currents as low as 10 −18 A can thus be detected by electron counting, a vast improvement over previous dedicated measurements. Emission episodes were recorded at surface fields as low as ∼10 kV/cm in some wires and observed to have complex emission patterns, with average rates of 10-200 counts per second (c/s) and outbreaks as high as ∼10 6 c/s. A fainter, less variable type of emission was also present in all untreated samples. There is evidence of a partial conditioning effect, with subsequent tests yielding on average fewer emitters occurring at different fields for the same wire. We find no evidence for an intrinsic threshold particular to the metal-LXe interface which might have limited previous experiments up to fields of at least 160 kV/cm. The general phenomenology is not consistent with enhanced field emission from microscopic filaments, but it appears instead to be related to the quality of the wire surface in terms of corrosion and the nature of its oxide layer. This study concludes that some surface treatments, in particular nitric acid cleaning applied to stainless steel wires, can bring about at least order-of-magnitude improvements in overall electron emission rates, and this should help the next generation of detectors achieve the required electrostatic performance.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study and mitigation of spurious electron emission from cathodic wires in noble liquid time projection chambers

Tomás

Araújo

Bailey

et al. 2018

Astroparticle Physics

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“…The first generation of two-phase xenon detectors used for direct WIMP search and dedicated two-phase test chambers for laboratory R&D demonstrated the sensitivity of detectors of this type to single ionization electrons [31], [38], [39], [40], [41], [42]. Typical signal for a single ionization electron emitted from the liquid to the gas phase and drifting between the liquid surface and the anode is a sequence of SPE pulses with a characteristic duration of an S2 signal (~ 2 µs in our case).…”

Section: Se Calibrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to worldwide study, part of these SE originates from photoionization of detector materials and the impurities dissolved in xenon by the VUV light from S1 or S2 [38], [39], [40], [42]. The SE signals that appear without straightforward causal link to the presence of light in the detector are usually referred to as "spontaneous" ones [31], [39], [40], [41]. Their properties and hypotheses of their origin are discussed in ( [18], page 24), [31], [39], [41], [43].…”

Section: Se Calibrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The SE signals that appear without straightforward causal link to the presence of light in the detector are usually referred to as "spontaneous" ones [31], [39], [40], [41]. Their properties and hypotheses of their origin are discussed in ( [18], page 24), [31], [39], [41], [43]. As pointed out in [43] and observed by us in this test with RED-100, there is a large excess of SE events after the energetic events, especially muons, with exponential decay of their intensity.…”

Section: Se Calibrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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First ground-level laboratory test of the two-phase xenon emission detector RED-100

Akimov

Belov²,

Bolozdynya³

et al. 2020

J. Inst.

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RED-100 is a two-phase detector for study of coherent elastic scattering of reactor electron antineutrinos off xenon atomic nuclei. The detector contains a total of 200 kg of liquid xenon in a titanium cryostat with 160 kg of xenon in active volume inside a Teflon-made light collection cage associated with electrode system. The active volume is viewed by two arrays of nineteen 3"-diameter Hamamatsu R11410-20 PMTs assembled in two planes on top and bottom. The electrode system is equipped with an electron shutter (a patented device) to reduce a "spontaneous" single-electron noise. The detector was tested in a ground-level laboratory. The obtained results demonstrate that detection of coherent elastic scattering of reactor antineutrinos off xenon nuclei at Kalinin nuclear power plant with the RED-100 detector is feasible with a threshold of 4 ionization electrons.

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“…The idea behind the particle detection in two-phase emission detectors with noble gases used as a working medium was described in detail in the monograph [3]. These devices are capable of detecting single electrons produced in massive (tens and hundreds kilograms) working media, which are used as a target for searching for very rare processes with low energy losses [4,5]. Detectors of this type have been designed for detecting massive minimum ionizing particles and have found wide application today in experiments aimed at searching for cold dark matter [6][7][8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal stabilization system for the RED-100 liquid-xenon emission detector

et al. 2015

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The thermal stabilization system for the RED-100 liquid-xenon two-phase emission detector has been designed and tested. The RED-100 detector is developed by the Russian Emission Detectors (RED) collaboration for the experiment aimed at detecting the effect of coherent neutrino scattering from xenon nuclei. The system is based on thermosyphons (closed two-phase tubular heat pipes) that are filled with nitrogen and use free-boiling liquid nitrogen pool as a cooling machine. The system is capable of condensing 180-kg liquid xenon sample for 24 h and maintaining the temperature of a titanium cryostat in the range of 160-190 K with a precision about 0.1 K.

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Measurement of single-electron noise in a liquid-xenon emission detector

Cited by 16 publications

References 9 publications

Study and mitigation of spurious electron emission from cathodic wires in noble liquid time projection chambers

Study and mitigation of spurious electron emission from cathodic wires in noble liquid time projection chambers

First ground-level laboratory test of the two-phase xenon emission detector RED-100

Thermal stabilization system for the RED-100 liquid-xenon emission detector

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