Characterisation of silicon photomultipliers in a dilution refrigerator down to 9.4 mK towards a cryogenic cosmic-ray muon veto system

Journal article

We report the characterisation of a FBK NUV-HD-cryo silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) sensor operated in a 9.4 ± 0.2 mK environment inside a dilution refrigerator, towards the development of a cryogenic cosmic-ray muon veto system to be operated internal to a dilution refrigerator required for low background experiments such as the QUEST-DMC dark matter search experiment. We characterise the single photon response and the gain (the charge produced per detected photon), the dark count noise rate, and correlated noise contributions as a function of operating voltage. This paper also reports first proof-of-concept measurements of using a SiPM coupled to scintillator internal to a dilution refrigerator, towards detecting high-energy events consistent with candidate cosmic-ray muon signals.

Authors: Kemp, A; Autti, S; Bloomfield, E; Casey, A; Darvishi, N

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Journal: Journal of Instrumentation
• Volume: 21
• Issue: 05
• Pages: P05008
• Article number: P05008
• Publication date: 2026-05-11
• Acceptance date: 2026-04-18
• DOI: 10.1088/1748-0221/21/05/p05008
• EISSN: 1748-0221
• ISSN: 1748-0221
• Language: English
• Keywords: Cryogenic detectors; Photon detectors for UV, visible and IR photons (solid-state); Scintillators and scintillating fibres and light guides