Impact of proton irradiation on SiPM dark current for high-energy space instruments

27 Nov 2018, 18:00
2h

Speaker

Karine LACOMBE (IRAP CNRS)

Description

As photon detection is a major issue in any high-energy astronomy instrumentation, many space missions combined photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) with scintillators, for converting incoming high-energy photons into visible light, which in turn is converted in an electrical pulse. The silicon photomultipliers (SiPM), instead of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) which are bulky, fragile, and requiring a high-voltage power supply of up to several thousand volts, seem to be an encouraging alternative in the space field. We started a R&D program to assess the possibility of using SiPMs for space-based applications in the domain of high-energy astronomy. We already presented some results of the detector characterization to study the SiPM performance in a representative space environment, namely at low temperature and low pressure. For this purpose, we developed a dedicated vacuum chamber with a specific mechanical and thermal controlled system. After measuring dark current, dark count rate and PDE (Photon Detection Efficiency), we performed a first campaign of irradiation tests at UCL (Belgium) in order to understand the susceptibility of SiPM to radiation damage on two selected detectors (Ketek and SensL references) with a high level of fluence. Finally we led a new proton irradiation campaign based on several lower levels of fluence and two energies for further study. We then present the results of dark current measurements of irradiated SensL detectors.

Primary author

Karine LACOMBE (IRAP CNRS)

Co-authors

Presentation materials

There are no materials yet.