Conveners
RDC 7 Low-Background Detectors
- Guillermo Fernandez Moroni
- Daniel Baxter (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, USA)
- Noah Kurinsky (SLAC/Stanford)
RDC 7 Low-Background Detectors
- Daniel Baxter (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, USA)
- Noah Kurinsky (SLAC/Stanford)
- Guillermo Fernandez Moroni
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Sho Uemura (Fermilab)08/10/2025, 14:00RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
Skipper-CCDs - finely segmented silicon detectors with the ability to count single charges - have been used by SENSEI and DAMIC-M for sub-GeV dark matter searches with world-leading sensitivity.
I will present the concept and projected performance of the dual-sided Skipper-CCD, a proposed detector that simultaneously reads out electrons and holes from the two sides of the device.
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Louis Varriano (University of Washington)08/10/2025, 14:20RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
The LEGEND experiment searches for neutrinoless double beta decay in $^{76}$Ge-enriched high-purity germanium detectors operating in liquid argon, whose scintillation acts as an active veto against external background events. Using specialized detector geometries, pulse shape discrimination is performed to further veto background events. LEGEND-200 has completed about one year of stable...
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Dylan Temples (Fermilab)08/10/2025, 14:40RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
A Kinetic Inductance Phonon-Mediated (KIPM) Detector is a microcalorimeter that leverages kinetic inductance detectors (KID) to read out phonon signals from the device substrate. They are an attractive architecture for low-threshold rare-event searches. We have established a consortium comprising university and national lab groups dedicated to advancing the state of the art in these detectors....
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Prof. Caleb Fink (Syracuse University), Jadyn Anczarski (Stanford/SLAC/KIPAC)08/10/2025, 15:00RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
SPLENDOR is a cross-discipline collaboration—involving theorists, condensed matter physicists, and low energy-threshold instrumentation specialists—focused on developing narrow-gap semiconductors to search for Sub-MeV dark matter. SPLENDOR has developed a novel modular detector system that offers adaptability to incorporate newly developed semiconducting materials into an experimental package...
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Aditi Pradeep (SLAC/Stanford)08/10/2025, 15:20RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
The search for sub-GeV dark matter has pushed for the development of detectors with sub-eV energy resolution. Superconducting sensors have emerged as leading candidates in this effort. A central challenge in this field is achieving lower detector thresholds while minimizing background levels to maximize sensitivity to low-mass dark matter. At SLAC, the DMQIS group is addressing this challenge...
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Joanna Wuko (UMass Amherst)08/10/2025, 15:40RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
The TESSERACT experiment searches for sub-GeV dark matter with multiple cryogenic target materials and technologies. The HeRALD technology uses superfluid 4He as a target material for dark matter-nucleon scattering. Phonons produced by an atomic recoil trigger the evaporation of 4He atoms into the vacuum. These atoms are then detected calorimetrically using a Transition Edge Sensor (TES) array...
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Tyler Schlieder (Pacific Northwest National Lab)08/10/2025, 16:30RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
We report an evaluation of nickel produced via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) for potential use as a general structural material in future, large-scale, low-radioactivity rare-event search experiments in nuclear and particle physics. In particular, this work is focused on assessing both mechanical strength and radiopurity (i.e., concentration of primordial radionuclides $^{232}$Th, $^{238}$U,...
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Richard Saldanha08/10/2025, 16:50RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
Long-lived radioactive isotopes produced by cosmogenic activation can be a major source of background for rare event searches such as dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay. In this talk I will present efforts to measure and mitigate cosmogenic tritium production in silicon devices, focusing on a recent demonstration of a technique to efficiently remove cosmogenic tritium from high...
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Cecilia Ferrari (MIT)08/10/2025, 17:10RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
N-type GaAs crystals doped with Silicon and Boron have recently attracted attention due to their high brightness at cryogenic temperatures, a property of particular relevance to light dark matter detection and other low-background experiments. However, this behavior appears inconsistent with the material’s high refractive index and narrow-beam absorption, which should strongly suppress photon...
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Sam Hedges (Virginia Tech)08/10/2025, 17:30RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
Nuclear recoils can produce stable optically-active color centers in many common materials. Advances in light-sheet microscopy now allow rapid large-volume imaging of these materials with micrometer-scale resolution. We present the development of the mesoSPIM light sheet microscope at Virginia Tech, designed for imaging particle tracks relevant to nuclear and high-energy physics, including...
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Yikai Wu (Stony Brook University)08/10/2025, 17:50RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
The Skipper Charge Coupled Device (CCD), used by the SENSEI and DAMIC-M experiments, is currently the leading technology for detecting sub-GeV dark matter due to its single-electron sensitivity and low background rate. Since the start of the SENSEI experiment, one of its main efforts has been on reducing the single-electron backgrounds. Two sources of single-electron backgrounds are dark...
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Dr Geon-Bo Kim (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)08/10/2025, 18:10RDC 7 Low-Background DetectorsParallel session talk
We present a novel approach for the detection of sub-GeV dark matter using carbon-based crystals integrated with paramagnetic phonon sensors for low-threshold, low-background athermal phonon sensing. The paramagnetic phonon sensors, consisting of Er-doped Ag metallic films, are directly deposited onto the surfaces of target crystals. Athermal phonons generated by dark matter interactions in...
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