Characterization of the Hamamatsu VUV4 MPPCs for nEXO

• Published in: arXiv.org 2019-06
• Main Authors: Gallina, G, Giampa, P, Retiere, F, Zhang, G, Ward, M, Lic, G, Tsang, T, Doria, L, S Al Kharusi, Alfaris, M, Anton, G, Arnquist, I J, Barbeau, P S, Bhatta, T, Cao, G F, Cen, W R, Chambers, C, Charlebois, S A, Chiu, M, Cleveland, B, Darroch, L, Daugherty, S J, De St Croix, A, DeVoe, R, Ding, Y Y, Dolinski, M J, Elbeltagi, M, Fabris, L, Fairbank, D, Fairbank, W, Farine, J, Gautam, P, Hansen, E V, Hoßl, J, House, A, Hughes, M, Ito, Y, Iverson, A, Jiang, X S, Karelin, A, Kodroff, D, Krucken, R, Kuchenkov, A, Kumar, K S, Larson, A, Lenardo, B G, Leonarda, D S, Z Li, Licciardi, C, Linw, Y H, P Lv, MacLellan, R, McElroy, T, Medina-Peregrina, M, Michel, T, Mong, B, Moore, D C, Murray, K, Nakarmi, P, Nusair, O, Odgers, K, Odian, A, Oriunno, M, Orrell, J L, Ortega, G S, Ostrovskiy, I, Overman, C T, Parent, S, Piepkez, A, J -F Pratte, Radeka, V, Rescia, S, Richman, M, Rossignol, T, Rowson, P C, Roy, N, Sangiorgio, S, Soma, A K, Stekhanov, V, Stiegler, T, Sun, X L, Todd, J, Tolba, T, Totev, T I, Tsang, R, Vachon, F, Visser, G, J -L Vuilleumier, Wagenpfeil, M, Walent, M, Watkins, J, Weber, M, Wei, W, Wen, L J, Wichoski, U, Wu, W H, Yang, L, Y -R Yen, Zeldovich, O, Ziegler, T
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Crosstalk; Electric potential; Photon avalanches; Xenon
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1903.03663

In this paper we report on the characterization of the Hamamatsu VUV4 (S/N: S13370-6152) Vacuum Ultra-Violet (VUV) sensitive Silicon Photo-Multipliers (SiPMs) as part of the development of a solution for the detection of liquid xenon scintillation light for the nEXO experiment. Various SiPM features, such as: dark noise, gain, correlated avalanches, direct crosstalk and Photon Detection Efficiency (PDE) were measured in a dedicated setup at TRIUMF. SiPMs were characterized in the range \(163 \text{ } \text{K} \leq \text{T}\leq 233 \text{ } \text{K}\). At an over voltage of \(3.1\pm0.2\) V and at \(\text{T}=163 \text{ }\text{K}\) we report a number of Correlated Avalanches (CAs) per pulse in the \(1 \upmu\text{s}\) interval following the trigger pulse of \(0.161\pm0.005\). At the same settings the Dark-Noise (DN) rate is \(0.137\pm0.002 \text{ Hz/mm}^{2}\). Both the number of CAs and the DN rate are within nEXO specifications. The PDE of the Hamamatsu VUV4 was measured for two different devices at \(\text{T}=233 \text{ }\text{K}\) for a mean wavelength of \(189\pm7\text{ nm}\). At \(3.6\pm0.2\) V and \(3.5\pm0.2\) V of over voltage we report a PDE of \(13.4\pm2.6\text{ }\%\) and \(11\pm2\%\), corresponding to a saturation PDE of \(14.8\pm2.8\text{ }\%\) and \(12.2\pm2.3\%\), respectively. Both values are well below the \(24\text{ }\%\) saturation PDE advertised by Hamamatsu. More generally, the second device tested at \(3.5\pm0.2\) V of over voltage is below the nEXO PDE requirement. The first one instead yields a PDE that is marginally close to meeting the nEXO specifications. This suggests that with modest improvements the Hamamatsu VUV4 MPPCs could be considered as an alternative to the FBK-LF SiPMs for the final design of the nEXO detector.