Quality assurance and quality control of the 26 m 2 SiPM production for the DarkSide-20k dark matter experiment

Journal article

DarkSide-20k is a novel liquid argon dark matter detector currently under construction at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) that will push the sensitivity for Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) detection into the neutrino fog. The core of the apparatus is a dual-phase Time Projection Chamber (TPC), filled with 50 tonnes of low radioactivity underground argon (UAr) acting as the WIMP target. NUV-HD-cryo Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM)s designed by Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) (Trento, Italy) were selected as the photon sensors covering two 10.5m2 Optical Planes, one at each end of the TPC, and a total of 5m2 photosensitive surface for the liquid argon veto detectors. This paper describes the Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) plan and procedures accompanying the production of FBK NUV-HD-cryo SiPM wafers manufactured by LFoundry s.r.l. (Avezzano, AQ, Italy). SiPM characteristics are measured at 77 K at the wafer level with a custom-designed probe station. As of March 2025, 1314 of the 1400 production wafers (94% of the total) for DarkSide-20k were tested. The wafer yield is 93.2±2.5%, which exceeds the 80% specification defined in the original DarkSide-20k production plan.

Authors: Acerbi, F; Adhikari, P; Agnes, P; Ahmad, I; Albergo, S

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: SpringerOpen
• Journal: The European Physical Journal C
• Volume: 85
• Issue: 5
• Article number: 534
• Publication date: 2025-05-14
• Acceptance date: 2025-04-16
• DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s10052-025-14196-9
• EISSN: 1434-6052
• ISSN: 1434-6044
• Language: English