Cryogenic performance of Silicon Photo-Multipliers at LN$_2$ temperature and at 3 K in the RES-NOVA cryostat

Abstract

Silicon Photo-Multipliers (SiPMs) are semiconductor-based photodetectors that offer performance comparable to that of traditional Photo-Multiplier Tubes (PMTs), while providing several advantages, including low operating voltage, immunity to magnetic fields, compact size, and mechanical robustness. These features have led to their widespread adoption in scintillator-based detectors for both fundamental and applied physics. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the detection of scintillation light at cryogenic temperatures in low-temperature experiments based on bolometric detectors, such as RES-NOVA and CUPID, as well as in emerging quantum applications. In the RES-NOVA experiment, radiopure PbWO$_4$ crystals are used to detect supernova neutrinos. The scintillation of PbWO$_4$ can only be evaluated at cryogenic temperatures, as the scintillation light yield is negligible at room temperature. We present measurements of the performance at cryogenic temperatures of Hamamatsu S13360-1350CS SiPMs in terms of breakdown voltage and gain, at 77~K (in a liquid nitrogen bath) and at 3~K. The cooling down to 3~K has been carried out using a Proteox LX cryostat from Oxford Instruments.