학술논문
Measurement of the ionization produced by sub-keV silicon nuclear recoils in a CCD dark matter detector.
Document Type
Article
Author
Source
Subject
*IONIZATION (Atomic physics)
*CHARGE coupled devices
*DARK matter
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Language
ISSN
2470-0010
Abstract
We report a measurement of the ionization efficiency of silicon nuclei recoiling with sub-keV kinetic energy in the bulk silicon of a charge-coupled device (CCD). Nuclear recoils are produced by low-energy neutrons (<24 keV) from a 124Sb-9Be photoneutron source, and their ionization signal is measured down to 60 eV electron equivalent. This energy range, previously unexplored, is relevant for the detection of low-mass dark matter particles. The measured efficiency is found to deviate from the extrapolation to low energies of the Lindhard model. This measurement also demonstrates the sensitivity to nuclear recoils of CCDs employed by DAMIC, a dark matter direct detection experiment located in the SNOLAB underground laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]