Search for: All records

Cryogenic calorimetric experiments to search for neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) are highly competitive, scalable, and versatile in isotope choice. The largest planned detector array, CUPID, consists of about 1500 individual Li₂¹⁰⁰MoO₄ detector modules, with further scaling envisioned for a follow-up experiment (CUPID-1T). In this article, we present a novel detector concept targeting this second stage, using a low-impedance TES-based readout for the Li₂MoO₄ absorber. This design is easily mass-produced and supports multiplexed readout. We describe the detector design and results from a first prototype operated at the NEXUS shallow underground facility at Fermilab. The detector is a 2-cm-side cube with a mass of 21 g, strongly thermally coupled to its readout chip, allowing rise-times of approximately 0.5 ms. This is more than an order of magnitude faster than current NTD-based detectors and is expected to effectively mitigate backgrounds caused by pile-up of two independent two-neutrino decay events occurring close in time. With a baseline resolution of 1.95 keV (FWHM), these performance parameters extrapolate to a background index from pile-up as low as 5 × 10⁻⁶ counts/keV/kg/year in CUPID-sized crystals. The detector was calibrated up to the MeV region, demonstrating sufficient dynamic range for 0νββ searches. In combination with a SuperCDMS HVeV detector, this setup also enabled a precision measurement of the scintillation time constants of Li₂MoO₄, revealing a primary component with a fast ~20 μs time scale. 

We present constraints on low-mass dark matter electron scattering and absorption interactions using a SuperCDMS high-voltage eV-resolution (HVeV) detector. Data were taken underground in the NEXUS facility located at Fermilab with an overburden of 225 meters of water equivalent. The experiment benefits from the minimizing of luminescence from the printed circuit boards in the detector holder used in all previous HVeV studies. A blind analysis of $6.1\mathrm{g}·\mathrm{days}$ of exposure produces exclusion limits for dark matter-electron scattering cross sections for masses as low as $1\mathrm{MeV}/c^2$ , as well as on the photon-dark photon mixing parameter and the coupling constant between axionlike particles and electrons for particles with masses $>1.2\mathrm{eV}/c^2$ probed via absorption processes. 

This article presents constraints on dark-matter-electron interactions obtained from the first underground data-taking campaign with multiple SuperCDMS HVeV detectors operated in the same housing. An exposure of $7.63\mathrm{g}\text{−}\mathrm{days}$ is used to set upper limits on the dark-matter-electron scattering cross section for dark matter masses between 0.5 and $1000\mathrm{MeV}/c^2$ , as well as upper limits on dark photon kinetic mixing and axionlike particle axioelectric coupling for masses between 1.2 and $23.3\mathrm{eV}/c^2$ . Compared to an earlier HVeV search, sensitivity was improved as a result of an increased overburden of 225 meters of water equivalent, an anticoincidence event selection, and better pile-up rejection. In the case of dark-matter-electron scattering via a heavy mediator, an improvement by up to a factor of 25 in cross section sensitivity was achieved. Published by the American Physical Society2025 

We measured the nuclear-recoil ionization yield in silicon with a cryogenic phonon-sensitive gram-scale detector. Neutrons from a monoenergetic beam scatter off of the silicon nuclei at angles corresponding to energy depositions from 4 keV down to 100 eV, the lowest energy probed so far. The results show no sign of an ionization production threshold above 100 eV. These results call for further investigation of the ionization yield theory and a comprehensive determination of the detector response function at energies below the keV scale.