Electrical characterization of the low background Cu-PEN links of the CUORE experiment

Abstract

In the CUORE experiment, under construction at LNGS (Gran Sasso National Laboratory), Cu-PEN tapes are the first part of the connecting links between the detector and the front-end electronics. Deep electrical characterization on each tape is to be performed, to ascertain that they comply with the requirements of the experiment. The characterization method is presented here. The first part is based on the time domain reflectometry (TDR) technique, to check the integrity of the electrical link while touching only one end of the tape, to avoid any possible damage to the bonding pads. The TDR measurement allows to locate possible defects on the tapes with a resolution of about 5cm. The second part of the characterization is focused on the parasitic impedance between neighboring links. For this characterization, a commercial electrometer is used; custom boards with remote control capability were built, in order to be able to check the links in vacuum and reach sensitivities on the parasitic conductance of the order of 1pA/V.