In-orbit radiation damage characterization of SiPMs in the GRID-02 CubeSat detector

• Published in: Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment Vol. 1044; p. 167510
• Main Authors: Zheng, Xutao, Gao, Huaizhong, Wen, Jiaxing, Zeng, Ming, Pan, Xiaofan, Xu, Dacheng, Liu, Yihui, Zhang, Yuchong, Peng, Haowei, Jiang, Yuchen, Long, Xiangyun, Lu, Di’an, Yang, Dongxin, Feng, Hua, Zeng, Zhi, Cang, Jirong, Tian, Yang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.12.2022
• Subjects: CubeSat; Dark current; GRID; Radiation damage; SiPM; Dark current; SiPM; CubeSat; Radiation damage; GRID
• ISSN: 0168-9002; 1872-9576
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2022.167510

Recently, silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) have been used in several space-borne missions, owing to their solid state, compact size, low operating voltage, and insensitivity to magnetic fields. However, operating SiPMs in space results in radiation damage and degraded performance. In-orbit quantitative studies on these effects are limited. In this study, we present in-orbit SiPM characterization results obtained by the second detector of the Gamma-Ray Integrated Detectors (GRID-02), which was launched on 6 November 2020. An increase in dark current of ∼100 μA/year per SiPM chip (model MicroFJ-60035-TSV) at 28.5 V and 5 °C was observed. Consequently, the overall noise level (sigma) of the GRID-02 detector increased by ∼7.5 keV/year. The estimate of this increase is ∼40 μA/year per SiPM chip at −20 °C, highlighting the positive effect of using a cooling system.