Magnetic Avalanche Detector using Single-Molecule Magnets for Dark Matter and Neutrino Detection Grant uri icon

abstract

  • The detection of a single quantum of energy with high efficiency and low false positive rate is of considerable scientific interest, from serving as single quantum sensors of optical and infra-red photons to enabling the direct detection of low-mass dark matter. It is scientifically challenging to develop sensors that can detect energy depositions as low as ~10 meV with high efficiency and low false positive (or dark count) rates. Sensors with this capability can be used to count single quanta of infra-red photons, a technical feat that has broad applications to many fields, including quantum computing. Such single-quantum sensors may also open a path towards the detection of the scattering or absorption of low mass (sub GeV) dark matter particles. This is a theoretically well motivated region of dark matter parameter space that has so far not been well explored. The detection of small energies can be accomplished through the use of an amplification technique that magnifies the effect of the initial energy deposition. Recently, it was proposed that a high-gain, low-threshold detector that can detect energies as low as 10 meV but with a low false positive rate could be realized in single crystals of single-molecule magnets (SMMs). Our collaborative has carried out the the first experimental demonstration of magnetic avalanches induced by scattering of quanta in single-molecule magnet (SMM) crystals made of Mn12-acetate, establishing the use of SMMs as particle detectors for the first time. While the current setup has an energy threshold in the MeV regime, our results motivate the exploration of a wide variety of SMMs whose properties could allow for detection of sub-eV energy depositions. This project will carry out an exploration of various SMMs currently produced and explored in the SMM community and experimentally determine their operational stability and energy thresholds down to a few mK temperatures.

date/time interval

  • 2020 - 2022