Characterization of the Hamamatsu VUV4 MPPCs for nEXO

G. Gallina, P. Giampa, F. Retière, J. Kroeger, G. Zhang, M. Ward, P. Margetak, G. Li, T. Tsang, L. Doria, S. Al Kharusi, M. Alfaris, G. Anton, I. J. Arnquist, I. Badhrees, P. S. Barbeau, D. Beck, V. Belov, T. Bhatta, J. BlatchfordJ. P. Brodsky, E. Brown, T. Brunner, G. F. Cao, L. Cao, W. R. Cen, C. Chambers, S. A. Charlebois, M. Chiu, B. Cleveland, M. Coon, A. Craycraft, J. Dalmasson, T. Daniels, L. Darroch, S. J. Daugherty, A. De, A. Der Mesrobian-Kabakian, R. DeVoe, J. Dilling, Y. Y. Ding, M. J. Dolinski, A. Dragone, J. Echevers, M. Elbeltagi, L. Fabris, D. Fairbank, W. Fairbank, J. Farine, S. Feyzbakhsh, R. Fontaine, P. Gautam, G. Giacomini, R. Gornea, G. Gratta, E. V. Hansen, M. Heffner, E. W. Hoppe, J. Hößl, A. House, M. Hughes, Y. Ito, A. Iverson, A. Jamil, M. J. Jewell, X. S. Jiang, A. Karelin, L. J. Kaufman, D. Kodroff, T. Koffas, R. Krücken, A. Kuchenkov, K. S. Kumar, Y. Lan, A. Larson, B. G. Lenardo, D. S. Leonard, S. Li, Z. Li, C. Licciardi, Y. H. Lin, P. Lv, R. MacLellan, T. McElroy, M. Medina-Peregrina, T. Michel, B. Mong, D. C. Moore, K. Murray, P. Nakarmi, R. J. Newby, Z. Ning, O. Njoya, F. Nolet, O. Nusair, K. Odgers, A. Odian, M. Oriunno, J. L. Orrell, G. S. Ortega, I. Ostrovskiy, C. T. Overman, S. Parent, A. Piepke, A. Pocar, J. F. Pratte, D. Qiu, V. Radeka, E. Raguzin, S. Rescia, M. Richman, A. Robinson, T. Rossignol, P. C. Rowson, N. Roy, R. Saldanha, S. Sangiorgio, K. Skarpaas, A. K. Soma, G. St-Hilaire, V. Stekhanov, T. Stiegler, X. L. Sun, M. Tarka, J. Todd, T. Tolba, T. I. Totev, R. Tsang, F. Vachon, V. Veeraraghavan, G. Visser, J. L. Vuilleumier, M. Wagenpfeil, M. Walent, Q. Wang, J. Watkins, M. Weber, W. Wei, L. J. Wen, U. Wichoski, S. X. Wu, W. H. Wu, X. Wu, Q. Xia, H. Yang, L. Yang, Y. R. Yen, O. Zeldovich, J. Zhao, Y. Zhou, T. Ziegler

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36 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this paper we report on the characterization of the Hamamatsu VUV4 (S/N: S13370-6152) Vacuum Ultra-Violet (VUV) sensitive Multi-Pixel Photon Counters (MPPC)s as part of the development of a solution for the detection of liquid xenon scintillation light for the nEXO experiment. Various MPPC features, such as: dark noise, gain, correlated avalanches, direct crosstalk and Photon Detection Efficiency (PDE) were measured in a dedicated setup at TRIUMF. MPPCs were characterized in the range 163K≤T≤233K. At an over voltage of 3.1±0.2 V and at T=163K we report a number of Correlated Avalanches (CAs) per pulse in the 1μs interval following the trigger pulse of 0.161±0.005. At the same settings the Dark-Noise (DN) rate is 0.137±0.002Hz/mm2. 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 T=233K for a mean wavelength of 189±7nm. At 3.6±0.2 V and 3.5±0.2 V of over voltage we report a PDE of 13.4±2.6% and 11±2%, corresponding to a saturation PDE of 14.8±2.8% and 12.2±2.3%, respectively. Both values are well below the 24% saturation PDE advertised by Hamamatsu. More generally, the second device tested at 3.5±0.2 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 Silicon Photo-Multipliers for the final design of the nEXO detector.

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Elsevier B.V.

Keywords

  • Hamamatsu
  • MPPCs
  • PDE
  • SiPMs
  • VUV4
  • nEXO

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