Optimal substrate for direct detection of light dark matter
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The topic of dark matter (DM) and its possible interaction with ordinary matter has occupied the central stage of the field of particle physics in recent decades. One line of research attempts to directly detect such interaction in a controlled lab environment with extremely sensitive (and in some cases even quantum-limited) sensors. SuperCDMS is one such experiment that utilizes transition-edge sensors (TES) fabricated on large silicon or germanium crystals cooled to cryogenic temperatures (around 50 mK). Silicon and germanium are typically used as the substrate material since they are cost-efficient and well-understood. Numerous alternative substrates have been proposed over the years but these novel substrates are often complex and difficult/costly to grow or make. In other cases they may require significant improvement in detector technology in order to work as intended. As such silicon and germanium remain the dominant substrate material in DM direct detection experiments. Expanding the repertoire of substrate materials is valuable. It can lead to better sensitivity to DM interactions, and a higher degree of material complementarity across different detectors and experiments. The latter point is especially important as we move deeper into the low mass region and look for lighter and lighter DM particles. We can begin to encounter backgrounds caused by non-perturbative many-body effects that are highly material-specific. Having substrates of different materials operating under similar conditions provides information about the nature of such backgrounds as we can compare the response in different materials to break any potential degeneracy not resolved by just having silicon and germanium. The work presented in this thesis is an attempt to systematically survey and understand the various solid state physics pertinent to the DM direct detection, and as application suggest criteria for the optimal substrate material to be used for various interaction channels. Towards the end of this work we will present concrete examples of substrates that can potentially be used in the next generation of DM detection experiments.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2022; ©2022 |
| Publication date | 2022; 2022 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Yu, To Chin |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Cabrera, Blas |
| Degree supervisor | Kurinsky, Noah |
| Thesis advisor | Cabrera, Blas |
| Thesis advisor | Kurinsky, Noah |
| Thesis advisor | Graham, Peter (Peter Wickelgren) |
| Thesis advisor | Kuo, Chao-Lin, (Physics professor) |
| Degree committee member | Graham, Peter (Peter Wickelgren) |
| Degree committee member | Kuo, Chao-Lin, (Physics professor) |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Physics |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | To Chin Yu. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Physics. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2022. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/sh926jm9954 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2022 by To Chin Yu
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).
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