Journal Article

Production, quality assurance and quality control of the SiPM Tiles for the DarkSide-20k Time Projection Chamber

Taylor, J., Lissia, M., Mari, S. M., Taborda, O., Garbini, M., Grauso, G., Machulin, I. N., Testera, G., Cebrian, S., Mariani, C., Cavalcante, P., Sung, A., Vyas, B., Viel, S., Hubaut, F., Pino, N., Giovanetti, G. K., Erjavec, T., Milincic, R., Frolov, E., Ramirez, A., Rogers, G., Ianni, A., Pesudo, V., Vishneva, A., Galiński, G., Dionisi, C., Vossebeld, J., Westerdale, S., Ramachers, Y., Murra, M., Bonivento, W., Sanfilippo, S., Wang, Y., Kotsiopoulou, L., Marasciulli, A., Smith, B., Matteucci, G., Agnes, P., Díaz Mairena, D., Moretti, E., Gendotti, A., Thieme, K., Mroz, T., Rudik, D., Wojcik, M. M., Franco, D., Koulosousas, S., Preosti, E., Horikawa, S., Cadeddu, M., Cargioli, N., Jillings, C., Ippolito, V., Kunzé, P., Korga, G., Blua, S., Merzi, S., Kimura, M., Sharma Poudel, S., Paternoster, G., Kemmerich, N., Pelczar, K., Hamer, A., Morsy, A., Szelc, A. M., Castellani, A., Adhikari, P., Cadoni, M., Minutoli, S., Oleynikov, V., Santorelli, R., Ficorella, A., Gola, A., McDonald, A. B., Pallavicini, M., Kubankin, A., Pralavorio, P., Carlini, M., Rubbia, A., Kuss, M., Sabia, M. A., Yin, J., Kemp, A., Hugues, T., Rossi, M., Savarese, C., Sestu, M., Nieradka,

2025

Overview

The DarkSide-20k dark matter direct detection experiment will employ a 21 m 2 silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) array, instrumenting a dual-phase 50 tonnes liquid argon Time Projection Chamber (TPC). SiPMs are arranged into modular photosensors called Tiles , each integrating 24 SiPMs onto a printed circuit board (PCB) that provides signal amplification, power distribution, and a single-ended output for simplified readout. 16 Tiles are further grouped into Photo-Detector Units (PDUs). This paper details the production of the Tiles and the Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA-QC) protocol established to ensure their performance and uniformity. The production and QA-QC of the Tiles are carried out at Nuova Officina Assergi (NOA), an ISO-6 clean room facility at LNGS. This process includes wafer-level cryogenic characterisation, precision die attaching, wire bonding, and extensive electrical and optical validation of each Tile. The overall production yield exceeds 83.5%, matching the requirements of the DarkSide-20k production plan. These results validate the robustness of the Tile design and its suitability for operation in a cryogenic environment.

• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer Nature B.V,Springer Nature,SpringerOpen
• Subject: Argon / Astronomy / Astrophysics and Cosmology / Chambers / Circuit boards / Cleanrooms / Collaboration / Dark matter / Design / Elementary Particles / Hadrons / Heavy Ions / Measurement Science and Instrumentation / Nuclear Energy / Nuclear Physics / Photomultiplier tubes / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / Printed circuits / Quality assurance / Quality control / Quantum Field Theories / Quantum Field Theory / Radiation counters / Receivers & amplifiers / Regular Article - Experimental Physics / Sensors / Stainless steel / String Theory / Tiles