2020/05/17 by L. Manenti, Manenti, Laura, L. Cremonesi +13
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det) #Laser Design and Applications #Plasma Diagnostics and Applications
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2005.08187
openalex publication_date 2020/05/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Purity monitor devices are increasingly used in noble gas time projection\nchambers to measure the lifetime of drifting electrons. Purity monitors work by\nemitting electrons from a photocathode material via the photoelectric effect.\nThe electrons are then drifted towards an anode by means of an applied electric\ndrift field. By measuring the difference in charge between the cathode and the\nanode, one can extract the lifetime of the drifting electrons in the medium.\nFor the first time, we test the performance of different photocathode\nmaterials-- silver, titanium, and aluminium--and compare them to gold, which is\nthe standard photocathode material used for purity monitors. Titanium and\naluminium were found to have a worse performance than gold in vacuum, whereas\nsilver showed a signal of the same order of magnitude as gold. Further tests in\nliquid argon were carried out on silver and gold with the conclusion that the\nsignal produced by silver is about three times stronger than that of gold.\n