Spontaneous damage annealing reactions as a possible source of low energy excess in semiconductor detectors

TL;DR

This paper proposes that low-energy excess signals in semiconductor detectors used for dark matter and neutrino detection may originate from defect annealing events, which are explained through atomistic simulations showing avalanche-like energy releases.

Contribution

It introduces a novel explanation for low-energy excess signals based on defect annealing, supported by atomistic simulations and analysis of energy release mechanisms.

Findings

Energy release from defect annealing matches experimental observations.

Low energy barriers can trigger large energy releases via avalanche effects.

Such events can occur at cryogenic temperatures despite limited defect migration.

Abstract

In semiconductor detectors designed for capturing dark matter particles or neutrinos, when the detection threshold is constantly improved to increasingly low energies, an "excess" signal of apparent energy release events below a few hundred eV is observed in several different kinds of detectors. This becomes a big obstacle to the observation of actual dark matter signals, hindering the detectors' sensitivity for rare events in this energy range. Using atomistic simulations with a classical thermostat and a quantum thermal bath, we show that this kind of signal is consistent with energy release from long-term annealing events of complex defects that can be formed by any kind of nuclear recoil radiation events. Such energy releases are shown to have a very similar exponential dependence on energy release magnitudes as that observed in experiments. By detailed analysis of the annealing events, we show that crossing very low energy barriers can trigger larger energy releases in an avalanche-like effect. This explains why large energy release events can occur even down to cryogenic temperatures, where the significant migration of point defects in silicon is hardly ever possible.