VUV Transmission of PTFE for Xenon-based Particle Detectors

Abstract

Liquid xenon (LXe) based detectors for rare event searches in particle and astroparticle physics are optimized for high xenon scintillation light collection and low background rate from detector materials. Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, Teflon) is commonly used to encapsulate the active LXe volume due to its high reflectance for VUV LXe scintillation light with peak emission at 178 nm. Reflectance, transmission and number of background signals arising from PTFE depend on the thickness of the PTFE detector walls. In this work, we present VUV transmission measurements for PTFE of various thicknesses often considered in the design phase of LXe detectors. PTFE samples are measured in an apparatus previously used for reflectance measurements in LXe using collimated light at a wavelength of 178 nm. Measurements in vacuum as well as gaseous xenon yield a transmission coefficient of \(\lambda = (0.89 \pm 0.05)\,\mathrm{mm}\) for light not reflected at the PTFE surface. The PTFE wall thickness of the XENONnT dark matter experiment was optimized by these measurements and selected as \(\geq 3\,\mathrm{mm}\).