Front-end Electronics Design Of Semiconductor Photomultiplier Readout For Scintillator Detector

The coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering can be used as a way to explore the new physics beyond the Standard Model.The liquid noble element detectors with high light yield and ionized electron yield,and has great advantages in the detection of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering.The background and threshold of the detector are two key factors affecting the detection sensitivity.Silicon photomultiplier（Si PM）has high quantum efficiency,low background,and excellent single-photon response,and these advantages are important for the research goal of low background and low threshold of neutrino detectors.It is planned to use silicone photomultiplier on the liquid argon detector to replace the traditional photomultiplier tube for scintillation light detection,and use transimpedance amplifier to amplify the photocurrent signal from the Si PM.In this paper,the selection of electronic devices such as operational amplifier and Si PM is first performed.A low-noise ultra-low temperature readout circuit based on transimpedance amplifier is designed,and the circuit’s low-noise characteristics are verified by DC simulation and AC simulation using TINA software.At liquid argon temperature,the characteristics of the readout circuit board are verified,and good linear output results are obtained.The gain of the operational amplifier is stable,and the power consumption is only 9.8 m W,and the signal-to-noise ratio of two Si PM arrays from Hamamatsu and Onsemi is 12.54 and 9.72,respectively.The performance of two Si PM arrays at low temperature was characterized,and Hamamatsu S14161-6050HS was selected for the following experiments.Before assembling the Si PM array in the liquid argon detector,in order to test the ability of the selected Hamamatsu Si PM array to detect scintillation light at liquid argon temperature,the energy response of the Ba F₂crystal was first measured using the Si PM array.At liquid argon temperature,the energy resolution is 26%by using ²⁴¹Am radiation source for energy calibration,and theαparticales in the crystal are screened.Finally,the 8 Si PM arrays is assembled in the liquid argon detector,the directly measured light yield is 25.7±1.6 photo-electrons per ke V.After considering the influence of dark noise,a net light yield of 12.8±0.8 photoelectrons per ke V is obtained,which is one of the best light yield results for a liquid argon detector.Based on the above work,an front-end amplification circuit for reading out Si PM array signals in liquid argon has been successfully obtained.This circuit and Si PM achieved the resolution of single photon signal in liquid argon detector,which is beneficial to the process of applying Si PM in liquid argon detector,and promote the goal of low threshold of liquid argon detector.