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Vyara Tsvetkova

Publications and source records attributed to Vyara Tsvetkova.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Liquid argon purification and purity monitoring: apparatus and first results

We report results from a 13-liter purified liquid argon test stand at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, USA. The system includes a single-pass liquid-phase purification column that can achieve sub-part-per-billion impurity levels. The liquid argon purity is measured with a double-gridded purity monitor to assess the electron lifetime. Measurements demonstrate an O2-equivalent impurity concentration of $0.21 \pm 0.05$ ppb (stable over a 20-hour duration), corresponding to an electron lifetime of 1.6 ms at a drift field of 500 V/cm. This test stand supports ongoing detector R\&D on charge and light readout for liquid argon time projection chambers, such as Q-Pix and other cold electronics systems.

physics.ins-det↗

Industrial Deposition of Wavelength-Shifting Films for Liquid Argon Photon Detection Systems

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) Phase-II Far Detector is considering an approximately 2000\,m$^2$ photon detection system to achieve a target mean light yield of 180\,PE/MeV. Meeting this requirement demands scalable, cost-effective, and high-quality wavelength-shifter (WLS) coatings capable of converting 127\,nm liquid-argon scintillation light into visible photons with controlled and reproducible optical performance. We report on the successful realization of an industrial physical vapor deposition (PVD) process for \textit{p}-terphenyl (pTP) coatings, adapted from vacuum deposition techniques developed for OLED display manufacturing, to produce uniform WLS layers on large-area inorganic substrates, a task traditionally challenged by adhesion and uniformity issues at organic--inorganic interfaces. Surface characterization by profilometry and spectroscopic measurements demonstrates edge-region thickness variation below 10\% and emission spectra consistent with high-quality pTP reference samples. The industrial process demonstrates reproducibility, scalability, and significantly reduced production time compared to laboratory-based methods, while maintaining optical characteristics consistent with established pTP reference samples. These results establish a viable pathway for mass production of high-performance pTP coatings for DUNE FD3 and future neutrino experiments, from a coating manufacturing and process standpoint. Detector-level performance validation, including quantitative VUV conversion efficiency measurements at 127\,nm, is identified as future work.

physics.ins-det↗