Dark Matter in CCDs at Modane (DAMIC-M): a silicon detector apparatus searching for low-energy physics processes

Abstract

Dark Matter In CCDs (DAMIC) is a silicon detector apparatus used primarily for searching for low-mass dark matter using the silicon bulk of Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) as targets. The silicon target within each CCD is 675 μm thick and its top surface is divided into over 16 million 15 μm × 15 μm pixels. The DAMIC collaboration has installed a number of these CCDs at SNOLAB. As of 2019, DAMIC at SNOLAB has reached operational conditions with leakage current less than 8.2 ×10-22 A cm-2 and a readout noise of 1.6 e, achieved with 5 CCDs. A new DAMIC apparatus will be installed at Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane in a few years. The DAMIC at Modane (DAMIC-M) collaboration will be using an improved version of CCDs designed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with skipper amplifiers that use non-destructive readout with multiple-sampling, enabling the CCDs to achieve a readout noise of 0.068 e. The low readout noise, in conjunction with low leakage current of these skipper CCDs, will allow DAMIC-M to observe physics processes with collisions energies as low as 1 eV. The DAMIC-M experiment will consist of an array of 50 large-area skipper CCDs with more than 36 million pixels in each CCD. The following proceeding will introduce the DAMIC apparatus at SNOLAB and its results and as well as the capabilities and the status of the new DAMIC-M experiment.