Proportional electroluminescence in two-phase argon and its relevance to rare-event experiments

Proportional electroluminescence (EL) in gaseous Ar has for the first time been systematically studied in the two-phase mode, at 87 K and 1.00 atm. Liquid argon had a minor (56 ppm) admixture of nitrogen, which allowed to understand, inter alia , the effect of N 2 doping on the EL mechanism in rare-event experiments using two-phase Ar detectors. The measurements were performed in a two-phase cryogenic avalanche detector (CRAD) with EL gap located directly above the liquid-gas interface. The EL gap was optically read out in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV), near 128 nm (Ar excimer emission), and in the near ultraviolet (UV), at 300–450 nm (N 2 second positive system emission), via cryogenic photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) and a Geiger-mode APD (GAPD). Proportional electroluminescence was measured to have an amplification parameter of 109 ± 10 photons per drifting electron per kV overall in the VUV and UV, of which 51 ± 6% were emitted in the UV. The measured EL threshold, at an electric field of 3.7 ± 0.2 kV/cm, was in accordance with that predicted by the theory. The latter result is particularly relevant to DarkSide and SCENE dark matter search-related experiments, where the operation electric field was thereby on the verge of appearance of the S2 (ionization-induced) signal. The results obtained pave the way to the development of N 2 -doped two-phase Ar detectors with enhanced sensitivity to the S2 signal.