A new experiment to detect dark matter in sub-MeV range using semiconductor superlattice superstructures (SSS)

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel experimental approach using semiconductor superlattice superstructures to detect sub-MeV dark matter particles through electron scattering and photon emission in the micrometer range.

Contribution

The work introduces a new detection method employing semiconductor superlattices as targets for sub-MeV dark matter, utilizing their specific band gap properties and quantum cascade laser detection.

Findings

Potential to detect sub-MeV dark matter particles.

Use of semiconductor superlattice superstructures as target material.

Detection of emitted photons in the micrometer range.

Abstract

About $26\%$ of the matter in our Universe is made up of Dark Matter (DM), which interacts with Standard Model (SM) matter only through gravitational or weak interactions. Many proposals have been made by scientists about the possible candidates of DM - WIMPs, axions, ALPs, black holes etc. And range of its mass could be extremely broad - from Planck scale to as light as $10^{-22}$ eV. Experiments to detect DM are extremely challenging, as DM does not exhibit appreciable interactions with ordinary matter. May be due to such elusive nature, so far it has not been possible to detect DM, though many experiments are going on worldwide to do so. With about 40 orders of magnitude variation in their mass, it is possible that their gravitational interaction too is very weak, and many creative proposals have been made to detect possible DM candidates, with vast variation of techniques and target materials. In this work, we propose a new experiment to detect sub-MeV range DM particles, using the semiconductor superlattice superstructure (SSS) as the target material. Such materials have band gap of the order of few hundreds of milli eV, and are suitable for detecting sub-MeV range particles scattering off electrons. The photons emitted as a result of excitation of SSS lie in the micrometer range and may be detected via quantum cascade lasers (QCL).