Abstract
High Purity germanium point-contact detectors have low energy thresholds and excellent energy resolution over a wide energy range, and are thus widely used in nuclear and particle physics. In rare event searches, such as neutrinoless double beta decay, the point-contact geometry is of particular importance since it allows for pulse-shape discrimination, and therefore for a significant background reduction. In this paper we investigate the pulse-shape discrimination performance of ultra-high purity germanium point contact detectors. It is demonstrated that a minimal net impurity concentration is required to meet the pulse-shape performance requirements.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 81-88 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment |
| Volume | 921 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 21 2019 |
Funding
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy , Office of Science , Office of Nuclear Physics . We gratefully acknowledge helpful discussions and invaluable assistance from the Majorana Collaboration. S. Mertens gratefully acknowledges support of a Feodor Lynen fellowship by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and support by the Helmholtz Association. A. Hegai and C. Schmitt would like to thank the DAAD for supporting their stay at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung | |
| Office of Science | |
| Nuclear Physics | |
| Helmholtz Association |
Keywords
- Germanium detector
- Neutrinoless double beta decay
- Rare event search