Development of a novel, windowless, amorphous selenium based photodetector for use in liquid noble detectors
M. Rooks, S. Abbaszadeh, J. Asaadi, M. Febbraro, R. W. Gladen, E. Gramellini, Kaitlin Hellier, F. Maria Blaszczyk, A. D. McDonald
Abstract
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/μm) and across a wide range of temperatures (77 K–290 K). This work shows that the first proof-of-principle windowless amorphous selenium device 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.