Scalability, scintillation readout and charge drift in a kilogram scale solid xenon particle detector

TL;DR

This study demonstrates the scalability of solid xenon as a particle detector, showing its optical transparency, scintillation properties, and faster electron drift compared to liquid xenon, using a kilogram-scale setup.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale demonstration of solid xenon as a particle detector, including measurements of scintillation and charge drift properties.

Findings

Solid xenon shows reduced scintillation light compared to liquid xenon.

Electron drift speed is faster in solid xenon than in liquid xenon.

The system is scalable to kilogram-scale detectors.

Abstract

We report a demonstration of the scalability of optically transparent xenon in the solid phase for use as a particle detector above a kilogram scale. We employ a liquid nitrogen cooled cryostat combined with a xenon purification and chiller system to measure the scintillation light output and electron drift speed from both the solid and liquid phases of xenon. Scintillation light output from sealed radioactive sources is measured by a set of high quantum efficiency photomultiplier tubes suitable for cryogenic applications. We observed a reduced amount of photons in solid phase compared to that in liquid phase. We used a conventional time projection chamber system to measure the electron drift time in a kilogram of solid xenon and observed faster electron drift speed in the solid phase xenon compared to that in the liquid phase.