12:00–1:00 pm ERC 401
Pitam Mitra, University of Washington, "Single electron charge resolution with the first prototypes of DAMIC-M skipper CCD's"
Host: Daniel Baxter
The DAMIC (Dark Matter In CCDs) experiment has pioneered the detection of nuclear and electronic recoils in the silicon bulk of charge coupled devices (CCDs) to search for dark matter particles. A 40g detector is presently being operated at the SNOLAB underground laboratory. The DAMIC-M experiment---to be installed at the Laboratoire Souterrain de Modane in France---is the successor to DAMIC at SNOLAB. This kg-size detector will feature a novel CCD readout with unprecedented single electron-hole pair resolution. First prototypes of DAMIC-M CCDs were packaged and characterized. A resolution of 0.07 electrons was achieved. In this talk, I will present the packaging procedure, the implementation of the CCD readout sequence, and the characterization of the first CCDs. I will also summarize the experimental design and science goals of the DAMIC-M experiment.