Front-End Board for large area SiPM detector

Abstract

Abstract Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPMs) are widely employed for several applications, such as High Energy Physics experiments, as well as other research and industrial fields. SiPMs operating at low temperature, in particular, are the most interesting application for the new large particle detectors for neutrinos and dark matter experiments. In this work we present a low-noise, high-speed front-end electronics (Front-End Boards, FEBs) for large area SiPMs to be employed in the JUNO-TAO experiment for rare event searching. The FEBs are able to manage the signals coming from a 25 cm2 SiPM tile, showing single photoelectron resolution better than 13% and dynamic range up to 250 photoelectrons. A careful approach to the front-end electronics design has shown to be critical in order to fully keep the exceptional performances of the SiPMs in terms of single photon detection, dynamic range, and fast timing properties. The sub-nanosecond timing properties make them suitable to work with the typical mixtures of liquid scintillators currently being used in particle and astroparticle physics experiments. The JUNO-TAO detector will achieve an energy resolution better than 2% at 1 MeV by the use of state-of-the-art SiPMs operating at -50°C. A dedicated readout system has been developed in order to collect and digitize the ∼8,000 channels needed to ensure the requested performances. A complete test report about the performance of the pre-production FEBs batch will be presented, showing the solution taken to ensure a high stability and reproducibility of the results.