Ultra-Low Noise Mechanically Cooled Germanium Detector

Understand

Low capacitance, large volume, high purity germanium (HPGe) radiation detectors have been successfully employed in low-background physics experiments.

• However, some physical processes may not be detectable with existing detectors whose energy thresholds are limited by electronic noise.
• In this paper, methods are presented which can lower the electronic noise of these detectors.
• Through ultra-low vibration mechanical cooling and wire bonding of a CMOS charge sensitive preamplifier to a sub-pF p-type point contact HPGe detector, we demonstrate electronic noise levels below 40 eV-FWHM.