Towards Low-Energy Electron High-Resolution Spectroscopy with Transition-Edge Sensors

TL;DR

This study demonstrates significant improvements in energy resolution for low-energy electron detection using transition-edge sensors, advancing high-precision spectroscopy crucial for neutrino mass experiments.

Contribution

The paper introduces a TES with reduced active area and a refined electron source, achieving unprecedented energy resolution for electrons in the 92-99 eV range.

Findings

Gaussian energy resolution of 0.479 eV for fully-absorbed electrons

Over 20-fold improvement in FWHM resolution compared to previous work

Reduction in electron back-scattering enhances measurement precision

Abstract

We present a study of the energy resolution of transition-edge sensors (TESs) for the detection of electrons in the 100 eV kinetic energy range. The TES is a Ti-Au bilayer with an active area of $(60 \times 60)$ $\mu \text{m}^2$ and a critical temperature of $\sim$ 80 mK. The electron source is based on vertically-aligned multiwall carbon nanotubes located inside the cryostat, with electrons generated via field emission. For electrons in the (92 - 99) eV kinetic energy range, we obtain a Gaussian energy resolution for fully-absorbed electrons of (0.479 $\pm$ 0.041 $\pm$ 0.055) eV. When considering the full-width at half-maximum of the peak, the corresponding resolution is of (1.44 $\pm$ 0.17 $\pm$ 0.27) eV. The former represents an improvement of (46 - 60)% with respect to previous results, and is mainly attributed to the reduction in the TES active area. The latter is instead an improvement of over a factor of 20, and is mainly due to the reduction in the emitting area of the electron source, which significantly suppresses electron back-scattering in proximity of the TES. These results represent a major milestone toward high-precision spectroscopy on low-energy electrons, which is a key objective for the PTOLEMY experiment.