Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Thermal detection of single e-h pairs in a biased silicon crystal detector

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5010699· OSTI ID:1424717
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [4];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [5]
  1. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Physics
  2. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Kavli Inst.for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
  3. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Physics; SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Kavli Inst.for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
  4. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics
  5. Santa Clara Univ., Santa Clara, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics
+ Show Author Affiliations

We demonstrate that individual electron-hole pairs are resolved in a 1 cm2 by 4 mm thick silicon crystal (0.93 g) operated at ~35 mK. One side of the detector is patterned with two quasiparticle-trap-assisted electro-thermal-feedback transition edge sensor arrays held near ground potential. The other side contains a bias grid with 20% coverage. Bias potentials up to ±160 V were used in the work reported here. A fiber optic provides 650 nm (1.9 eV) photons that each produce an electron-hole (e–h+) pair in the crystal near the grid. The energy of the drifting charges is measured with a phonon sensor noise σ ~0.09 e– h+ pair. In conclusion, the observed charge quantization is nearly identical for h+s or e–s transported across the crystal.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1424717
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 112; ISSN 0003-6951
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (13)

Calorimetric ionization detector
  • Luke, P. N.; Beeman, J.; Goulding, F. S.
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 289, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-9002(90)91510-I
journal April 1990
A quasiparticle‐trap‐assisted transition‐edge sensor for phonon‐mediated particle detection journal November 1995
Nonlinear optimal filter technique for analyzing energy depositions in TES sensors driven into saturation journal November 2014
Imaging the oblique propagation of electrons in germanium crystals at low temperature and low electric field journal January 2016
Radiation Ionization Processes in Germanium and Silicon Crystals journal May 1962
New results from the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment journal October 2003
Measurement of the ionization produced by sub-keV silicon nuclear recoils in a CCD dark matter detector journal October 2016
New Results from the Search for Low-Mass Weakly Interacting Massive Particles with the CDMS Low Ionization Threshold Experiment journal February 2016
The Monte Carlo method for the solution of charge transport in semiconductors with applications to covalent materials journal July 1983
Observation of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering journal August 2017
Observation of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering text January 2017
Radiation ionization processes in germanium and silicon crystals [Процессы радиационной ионизации в кристаллах германия и кремния] journal January 1961
Observation of Coherent Elastic Neutrino-Nucleus Scattering text January 2017

Cited By (17)

Defect Creation in Crystals: A Portal to Directional Dark Matter Searches journal August 2018
Optimizing Thermal Detectors for Low-Threshold Applications in Neutrino and Dark Matter Experiments journal October 2018
Modeling of Impact Ionization and Charge Trapping in SuperCDMS HVeV Detectors journal February 2020
Nanokelvin DC and AC Meissner-transition-edge temperature detectors journal February 2019
Direct detection of strongly interacting sub-GeV dark matter via electron recoils journal September 2019
Solar neutrinos as a signal and background in direct-detection experiments searching for sub-GeV dark matter with electron recoils journal May 2018
Diamond detectors for direct detection of sub-GeV dark matter journal June 2019
First Dark Matter Constraints from a SuperCDMS Single-Charge Sensitive Detector journal August 2018
SENSEI: First Direct-Detection Constraints on Sub-GeV Dark Matter from a Surface Run journal August 2018
Relation between the Migdal Effect and Dark Matter-Electron Scattering in Isolated Atoms and Semiconductors journal January 2020
Direct detection of nuclear scattering of sub-Gev dark matter using molecular excitations journal November 2019
SENSEI: First Direct-Detection Constraints on sub-GeV Dark Matter from a Surface Run text January 2018
First Dark Matter Constraints from a SuperCDMS Single-Charge Sensitive Detector text January 2018
Diamond Detectors for Direct Detection of Sub-GeV Dark Matter text January 2019
Direct Detection of Strongly Interacting Sub-GeV Dark Matter via Electron Recoils text January 2019
On the relation between Migdal effect and dark matter-electron scattering in isolated atoms and semiconductors text January 2019
Modeling of Impact Ionization and Charge Trapping in SuperCDMS HVeV Detectors text January 2019

Figures / Tables (5)

Fig. 1(p. 2)figure Fig. 1
Fig. 2(p. 2)figure Fig. 2
Fig. 3(p. 3)figure Fig. 3
Fig. 4(p. 3)figure Fig. 4
Fig. 5(p. 3)figure Fig. 5

Similar Records

Single electron–hole pair sensitive silicon detector with surface event discrimination
Journal Article · Thu Mar 05 23:00:00 EST 2020 · Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment · OSTI ID:1542181
Superconductive pairing of fermions and semions in two dimensions
Journal Article · Sun Nov 12 23:00:00 EST 1989 · Physical Review Letters; (USA) · OSTI ID:5175687

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE