TriMethyl Bismuth (TMBi) has been proposed as a detector medium with charge and Cherenkov photon readout for positron emission tomography. Bold-PET pursues the idea of a drift detector based on TMBi, a heavy metal-organic liquid, to read out both the charge and the light generated in the liquid. The high atomic number (Z Bi = 83) effectively converts TMBi 511 keV photons through the photoelectric effect (47% photo fraction). In addition, high optical density for visible wavelengths enables the emission of Cherenkov radiation generated by relativistic electrons in TMBi.In this work, we present studies on handling TMBi at different electric fields and under different environmental conditions to find suitable configurations to suppress electrical breakdown in TMBi at room temperature. A two-electrode glass cell filled with TMBi was constructed, and the breakdown behavior was tested under different operating conditions. At the vapor pressure of TMBi at room temperature of about 40 mbar and electric fields up to 20 kV/cm in the presence of low oxygen contamination, we found the formation of a discharge channel in the liquid and a steady increase in current. Further pressure reduction led to boiling of the TMBi and spontaneous ignition.We conclude from our experiments that TMBi remains stable against electric breakdown at room temperature in a pure argon atmosphere of 1 bar, at least up to electric field strengths of 20 kV/cm, presumably because the formation of gaseous TMBi was prevented.

A new type of detector for positron-emission tomography (PET) has been proposed recently, using a heavy organo-metallic liquid — TriMethyl Bismuth (TMBi) — as target material. TMBi is a transparent liquid with the high Z element Bismuth contributing 82% of its mass. 511keV annihilation photons are converted efficiently into photo-electrons within the detector material producing both Cherenkov light and free charge carriers in the liquid. While the optical component enables a fast timing, a charge readout using a segmented anode can provide an accurate position reconstruction and energy determination. The charge measurement requires a high level of purification, as any electronegative contaminants cause signal degradation. In addition to the purity requirements, the reactive nature of TMBi poses many challenges that need to be met until a fully functioning detector for PET applications can be realized. The paper presents an experimental setup that aims to remove electronegative impurities by electrostatic filtering and to characterise the properties of TMBi, e.g. the relative permittivity, for its application as a detector medium for charge read out.

A high-flow radon removal system based on cryogenic distillation was developed and constructed to reduce radon-induced backgrounds in liquid xenon detectors for rare event searches such as XENONnT. A continuous purification of the XENONnT liquid xenon inventory of 8.4 tonnes at process flows up to 71 kg/h (200 slpm) is required to achieve a radon reduction by a factor larger than two for radon sources inside the detector. To reach such high flows, the distillation column’s design features liquid xenon inlet and outlets along with novel custom-made bath-type heat exchangers with high liquefaction capabilities. The distillation process was designed using a modification of the McCabe–Thiele approach without a bottom product extraction. The thermodynamic concept is based on a Clausius–Rankine cooling cycle with phase-changing medium, in this case the xenon itself. To drastically reduce the external cooling power requirements, an energy efficient heat pump concept was developed applying a custom-made four cylinder magnetically-coupled piston pump as compressor. The distillation system was operated at thermodynamically stable conditions at a process flow of (91± 2) kg/h (( 258± 6 ) slpm), 30 activity concentration <1 Bq/kg is expected inside the XENONnT detector given the measured radon source distribution.

Two cryogenic bath-type heat exchangers for ultra-pure noble gas applications were developed with particular emphasis on noble gas liquefaction in cryogenic distillation systems. The main objective was to construct heat exchangers for xenon from materials that do not emanate radon and that fulfill ultra-high vacuum standards. Therefore, only high-quality copper and stainless steel materials were used. Especially, large-area oxygen-free copper fins with high conductivity in a new design ensure efficient heat transfer. One bath-type Xe-Xe heat exchanger was designed with a diameter of 50 cm to achieve a xenon condensing capacity of at least 100 kg/h. In order to guarantee the necessary heat transfer between the two xenon reservoirs, this heat exchanger features a specially manufactured stainless steel flange with a copper plate welded inside. We first tested our concept on a dedicated bath-type heat exchanger with a reduced diameter of 30 cm using liquid nitrogen to liquefy the xenon. A model based on conservative assumptions such as film boiling on the nitrogen side and film condensation on the xenon side was developed and applied to caluclate the expected heat transfer for our design. We were able to demonstrate an adjustable xenon liquefaction rate of up to 113 kg/h limited only by our measurement procedure at a cooling efficiency of (0.98 ± 0.03) for the LN 2 -Xe heat exchanger.

A novel online distillation technique was developed for the XENON1T dark matter experiment to reduce intrinsic background components more volatile than xenon, such as krypton or argon, while the detector was operating. The method is based on a continuous purification of the gaseous volume of the detector system using the XENON1T cryogenic distillation column. A krypton-in-xenon concentration of $(360 \pm 60)$ ppq was achieved. It is the lowest concentration measured in the fiducial volume of an operating dark matter detector to date. A model was developed and fit to the data to describe the krypton evolution in the liquid and gas volumes of the detector system for several operation modes over the time span of 550 days, including the commissioning and science runs of XENON1T. The online distillation was also successfully applied to remove Ar-37 after its injection for a low energy calibration in XENON1T. This makes the usage of Ar-37 as a regular calibration source possible in the future. The online distillation can be applied to next-generation experiments to remove krypton prior to, or during, any science run. The model developed here allows further optimization of the distillation strategy for future large scale detectors.

Silicon photomultipliers are regarded as a very promising technology for next-generation, cutting-edge detectors for low-background experiments in particle physics. This work presents systematic reflectivity studies of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM) and other samples in liquid xenon at vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) wavelengths. A dedicated setup at the University of Münster has been used that allows to acquire angle-resolved reflection measurements of various samples immersed in liquid xenon with 0.45° angular resolution. Four samples are investigated in this work: one Hamamatsu VUV4 SiPM, one FBK VUV-HD SiPM, one FBK wafer sample and one Large-Area Avalanche Photodiode (LA-APD) from EXO-200. The reflectivity is determined to be 25–36 % at an angle of incidence of 20° for the four samples and increases to up to 65 % at 70° for the LA-APD and the FBK samples. The Hamamatsu VUV4 SiPM shows a decline with increasing angle of incidence. The reflectivity results will be incorporated in upcoming light response simulations of the nEXO detector.

A high performance gas displacement pump based on four individual cylinders was developed. The magnetically-coupled pistons and the hermetically-sealed housings as well as the special cleanliness in terms of out-gassing and radio-purity make the four cylinder pump interesting for the usage in low background experiments dealing with noble gases as target. An optimized inner flow path as well as reduced dead volume with respect to the prototype single cylinder pump of the XENON1T experiment combined with advanced polymer piston gaskets and a piston coupling force of (3177 ± 162) N ensures a high and reliable performance. Furthermore, a phase-shifted synchronization of the pistons' movement creates an additional performance boost as well as minimizes fluctuations of flow and compression. The pump is able to generate xenon flows of 474 slpm with a pressure difference of 1.80 bar at an inlet pressure of 2.1 bar.

Experiments based on noble elements such as gaseous or liquid argon or xenon utilize the ionization and scintillation properties of the target materials to detect radiation-induced recoils. A requirement for high light and charge yields is to reduce electronegative impurities well below the ppb (parts per billion, 1 ppb \(=1\times 10^{-9}\) mol/mol) level. To achieve this, the target material is continuously circulated in the gas phase through a purifier and returned to the detector. Additionally, the low backgrounds necessary dictate low-Rn-emanation rates from all components that contact the gas. Since commercial pumps often introduce electronegative impurities from lubricants on internal components or through small air leaks, and are not designed to meet the radiopurity requirements, custom-built pumps are an advantageous alternative. A new pump has been developed in Muenster in cooperation with the nEXO group at Stanford University and the nEXO/XENON group at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute based on a magnetically-coupled piston in a hermetically sealed low-Rn-emanating vessel. This pump delivers high performance for noble gases, reaching more than 210 standard liters per minute (slpm) with argon and more than 170 slpm with xenon while maintaining a compression of up to 1.9 bar, demonstrating its capability for noble gas detectors and other applications requiring high standards of gas purity.

General Overview After a 4.5-month long shutdown and maintenance period, the re-commissioning of the UNILAC started in April. From end of April till July, a single beam time block was scheduled and in comparison to the previous year, the GSI accelerator facility was completely operational again with one exception. Since the UNILAC RFSystem is under construction, the maximum energy of the Alvarez section was defined to 5.89 MeV/u. So the synchrotron had to be operated with higher RF-harmonic number, what in the end was limiting the maximum revolution frequency and therefore the SIS18 extraction energy. In total the UNILAC has been in operation for 2448 hours and the SIS18 for 1776 hours (504 hours are included for the commissioning of each accelerator after shutdown).

The XENON1T experiment aims for the direct detection of dark matter in a detector filled with 3.3 tons of liquid xenon. In order to achieve the desired sensitivity, the background induced by radioactive decays inside the detector has to be sufficiently low. One major contributor is the \(\beta \)-emitter \(^{85}\)Kr which is present in the xenon. For XENON1T a concentration of natural krypton in xenon \(\mathrm {^{nat}\mathrm{Kr/Xe}\,<\,200\,ppq}\)  (parts per quadrillion, \(1~\mathrm{ppq}~=10^{-15} \mathrm{mol/mol}\)) is required. In this work, the design, construction and test of a novel cryogenic distillation column using the common McCabe–Thiele approach is described. The system demonstrated a krypton reduction factor of \(6.4\cdot 10^5\) with thermodynamic stability at process speeds above 3 kg/h. The resulting concentration of \(\mathrm {^{nat}\mathrm{Kr/Xe}<26\,ppq}\) is the lowest ever achieved, almost one order of magnitude below the requirements for XENON1T and even sufficient for future dark matter experiments using liquid xenon, such as XENONnT and DARWIN.

The separation of krypton and xenon is of particular importance for the field of direct dark matter search with liquid xenon detectors. The intrinsic contamination of the xenon with radioactive (85)Kr makes a significant background for these kinds of low count-rate experiments and has to be removed beforehand. This can be achieved by cryogenic distillation, a technique widely used in industry, using the different vapor pressures of krypton and xenon. In this paper, we present an investigation on the separation performance of a single stage distillation system using a radioactive (83m)Kr-tracer method. The separation characteristics under different operation conditions are determined for very low concentrations of krypton in xenon at the level of (83m)Kr/Xe = 1.9 ⋅ 10(-15), demonstrating, that cryogenic distillation in this regime is working. The observed separation is in agreement with the expectation from the different volatilities of krypton and xenon. This cryogenic distillation station is the first step on the way to a multi-stage cryogenic distillation column for the next generation of direct dark matter experiment XENON1T.

The XENON collaboration aims for the direct detection of cold dark matter in form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). A dual phase time projection chamber filled with liquid xenon is used to detect the WIMP-nucleon interaction. For the next generation experiment XENON1T with an active target mass of 1 ton of xenon, a new distillation column to remove krypton out of xenon to a concentration of < 5 × 10−13 (0.5 ppt) natural krypton in xenon is designed and tested at the Institut für Kernphysik, Universitat Munster. The experimental setup together with two diagnostic tools is presented, as well as one stability test of a 11 hour distillation run at the designed flowrate of 3 kg per hour.

The radioactive isomer Kr-83m has many properties that make it very useful for various applications. Its low energy decay products, like conversion, shake-off and Auger electrons as well as X-and gamma-rays are used for calibration purposes in neutrino mass experiments and direct dark matter detection experiments. Thanks to the short half-life of 1.83 h and the decay to the ground state Kr-83, one does not risk contamination of any low-background experiment with long-lived radionuclides. In this paper, we present a new approach, using (83m)Kras a radioactive tracer in noble gases. A method of doping Kr-83m into xenon gas and its detection, using special custom-made detectors, based on a photomultiplier tube, is described. Two applications of this method are presented: firstly, it can be used to characterize the particle flow inside of gas routing systems and determine the circulation speed of gas particles inside of a gas purification system for xenon. Secondly, it is used for rapid estimating of the separation performance of a distillation system.

A new method for measuring trace amounts of krypton in xenon using a cold trap with a residual gas analyzer has been developed, which achieves an increased sensitivity by temporarily reducing the pumping speed while expending a minimal amount of xenon. By partially closing a custom built butterfly valve between the measurement chamber and the turbomolecular pump, a sensitivity of 40 ppt has been reached. This method has been tested on an ultra-pure gas sample from Air Liquide with an unknown intrinsic krypton concentration, yielding a krypton concentration of 330±200 ppt.