R&D of Wavelength-Shifting Reflectors and Characterization of the Quantum Efficiency of Tetraphenyl Butadiene and Polyethylene Naphthalate in Liquid Argon

TL;DR

This study characterizes the optical properties and quantum efficiencies of TPB and PEN as wavelength-shifting materials in liquid argon, providing essential data for large-scale LAr detector design and simulation.

Contribution

First measurement of the quantum efficiency of TPB and PEN in liquid argon at 87K, aiding the development of scalable wavelength-shifting reflectors for LAr detectors.

Findings

Quantum efficiency of TPB > 67% at 90% CL

Quantum efficiency of PEN > 49% at 90% CL

Reflectivity and absorption properties characterized for TTX, TPB, and PEN

Abstract

Detectors based on liquid argon (LAr) often require surfaces that can shift vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light and reflect the visible shifted light. For the LAr instrumentation of the LEGEND-200 neutrinoless double beta decay experiment, several square meters of wavelength-shifting reflectors (WLSR) were prepared: the reflector Tetratex (TTX) was in-situ evaporated with the wavelength shifter tetraphenyl butadiene (TPB). For even larger detectors, TPB evaporation will be more challenging and plastic films of polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) are considered as an option to ease scalability. In this work, we first characterized the absorption (and reflectivity) of PEN, TPB (and TTX) films in response to visible light. We then measured TPB and PEN coupled to TTX in a LAr setup equipped with a VUV sensitive photomultiplier tube. The effective light yield in the setup was first measured using an absorbing reference sample, and the VUV reflectivity of TTX quantified. The characterization and simulation of the setup along with the measurements and modelling of the optical parameters of TPB, PEN and TTX allowed to estimate the quantum efficiency (QE) of TPB and PEN in LAr (at 87K) for the first time: these were found to be above 67% and 49%, respectively (at 90% CL). These results provide relevant input for the optical simulations of experiments that use TPB in LAr, such as LEGEND-200, and for experiments that plan to use TPB or PEN to shift VUV scintillation light.