Development of a novel, windowless, amorphous selenium based photodetector for use in liquid noble detectors

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel, windowless amorphous selenium photodetector capable of detecting VUV scintillation light at cryogenic temperatures, promising enhanced performance in liquid noble element detectors.

Contribution

It demonstrates the first proof-of-principle of a robust, cryogenically operable amorphous selenium photodetector sensitive to VUV light, suitable for noble element detector applications.

Findings

Device is robust under cryogenic conditions

Responsive to VUV light at low temperatures

Preserves argon purity during operation

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/$\mu$m) and across a wide range of temperatures (77K-290K). This work shows that the first proof-of-principle device windowless amorphous selenium 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.