Radiation damage and recovery of SiPMs exposed to low-momentum muon beams for innovative scintillation-based muon beam monitors
Abstract
Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPMs) are among the standard devices for light detection in scintillator detectors. Some detector designs require these devices to be placed in radioactive areas or directly exposed to particle beams. Specifically, the damage from exposure to low-momentum muons is particularly important, as they have a high energy deposit and they have several applications in material science and particle physics. Eight SiPM models from different manufacturers were exposed to 29 MeV/c positive muons, with an intensity of O(10^6) muons/s for 13 hours, maximising the charge deposited in the depletion region. I-V curves were measured before/after irradiation and annealing; DCR and crosstalk analyses are ongoing, to extract dark count rate and optical crosstalk. Despite showing a measurable increase in dark current, the devices preserved operational stability. Thermal annealing has also been tested by heating the devices at 125°C, showing a recovery of the optimal SiPM features. This work is part of a collaboration between the University of Pavia and ISIS, to develop detectors for low-momentum muons (< 40 MeV/c), based on thin scintillators.
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BibTeX
@misc{rossini2026radiation,
title = {{Radiation damage and recovery of SiPMs exposed to low-momentum muon beams for innovative scintillation-based muon beam monitors}},
author = {Riccardo Rossini and Sayani Biswas and Adrian D. Hillier and James S. Lord and Lisa Malliolio and Alessandro Menegolli and William Mourad and Daniel E. Pooley and Marco C. Prata and Lina Quintieri and Massimo Rossella and Francesco Zamperoni},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.32852},
eprint = {2610.32852},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.32852},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Radiation damage and recovery of SiPMs exposed to low-momentum muon beams for innovative scintillation-based muon beam monitors
AU - Riccardo Rossini
AU - Sayani Biswas
AU - Adrian D. Hillier
AU - James S. Lord
AU - Lisa Malliolio
AU - Alessandro Menegolli
AU - William Mourad
AU - Daniel E. Pooley
AU - Marco C. Prata
AU - Lina Quintieri
AU - Massimo Rossella
AU - Francesco Zamperoni
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.32852
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.32852
AB - Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPMs) are among the standard devices for light detection in scintillator detectors. Some detector designs require these devices to be placed in radioactive areas or directly exposed to particle beams. Specifically, the damage from exposure to low-momentum muons is particularly important, as they have a high energy deposit and they have several applications in material science and particle physics. Eight SiPM models from different manufacturers were exposed to 29 MeV/c positive muons, with an intensity of O(10^6) muons/s for 13 hours, maximising the charge deposited in the depletion region. I-V curves were measured before/after irradiation and annealing; DCR and crosstalk analyses are ongoing, to extract dark count rate and optical crosstalk. Despite showing a measurable increase in dark current, the devices preserved operational stability. Thermal annealing has also been tested by heating the devices at 125°C, showing a recovery of the optimal SiPM features. This work is part of a collaboration between the University of Pavia and ISIS, to develop detectors for low-momentum muons (< 40 MeV/c), based on thin scintillators.
ER -