Silicon interposer prototyping for nEXO

nEXO实验是寻找136氙的无中微子双β衰变的下一代实验。美国能源部正在加大对R的支持力度，以基于德国柏林弗劳恩霍夫可靠性和微集成研究所（IZM）的硅中间体技术开发一种“全硅”瓦片（10x10cm^2）解决方案。硅是仅有的两种材料之一（与石英一起），似乎具有足够的放射性，可以用于SiPM瓷砖。硅还具有与同样由硅制成的sipm完美热匹配的优势。我们打算在下一次CFI创新基金竞赛中申请资金，用于建造nEXO光电探测飞机。该提案旨在在CFI资金到位之前，支持在加拿大建设nEXO瓷砖的专业知识和能力的发展。我们提出的中间层开发将用于U.Sherbrooke和TRIUMF正在开发的数字SiPM （3DdSiPM）的原型，作为基准模拟SiPM解决方案的高性能替代方案。微电子研究所（IME，北京，中国）正在开发一种用于模拟sipm的中间插口，但传输线规格与中间插口上的数字电子操作不兼容。3ddsipm和模拟sipm之间的竞争非常激烈，但如果3ddsipm在2021年之前达到要求的性能，nEXO将有机会采用该技术。当涉及到机械和电气集成到瓷砖上时，3ddsipm预计将比模拟SiPM更有亮点，因为大多数信号处理都在3ddsipm内进行。通过这个提议，我们的目标是构建一个3DdSiPM tile，以证明3DdSiPM确实是优越的，特别是在考虑大规模集成问题时。***最后，硅中间体技术作为连接大型硅探测器的一种手段，可能会在液态氙光子探测之外找到应用。它当然非常适合用于液体氩气（DUNE，暗物质搜索），只要它具有成本效益。它也可能与硅像素探测器相关联。因此，它是一项在亚原子物理学中有广泛应用前景的新技术。这项拨款申请是加拿大在亚原子物理学中使用这项技术的出现中发挥先锋作用的及时机会。* * * * * * * *

The nEXO experiment is a next generation experiment searching for neutrino-less double beta decay of 136Xenon. The US Department of Energy is ramping up its support of the R to develop an “all silicon” tile (10x10cm^2) solution based on silicon interposer technology of the Fraunhofer Institute for reliability and micro-integration (IZM) in Berlin, Germany. Silicon is one of the only two materials (together with quartz) that appears to be sufficiently radiopure to be used for the SiPM tile. Silicon has also the advantage of perfect thermal matching with the SiPMs that are also made of silicon. We intend to request funds in the next CFI Innovation Fund competition for the construction of nEXO photo-detector plane. This proposal is to support the development of expertise and capabilities for the construction of nEXO tiles in Canada before CFI funds become available. ***The interposer development that we are proposing will be used to prototype tiles of the digital SiPMs (3DdSiPM) being developed by U.Sherbrooke and TRIUMF as an high performance alternative to the baseline analog SiPM solution. The Institute of Micro-Electronics (IME, Beijing, China) is developing an interposer for analog SiPMs but the transmission line specifications are not compatible with the operation of digital electronics on the interposer. The competition between 3DdSiPMs and analog SiPMs is fierce, yet we have a window of opportunity for nEXO to adopt this technology if 3DdSIPMs achieve the required performances by 2021. 3DdSiPMs are expected to shine compared to analog SiPM when it comes to mechanical and electrical integration onto tiles as most of the signal processing occurs within the 3DdSiPMs. With this proposal, our aim is to build a 3DdSiPM tile in order to demonstrate that 3DdSiPMs are truly superior especially when considering large scale integration issue. ***Finally, the silicon interposer technology as a mean of connecting large silicon detectors is likely to find applications outside the detection of photons in liquid Xenon. It would certainly be well suited for use in liquid Argon (DUNE, Dark matter search) provided that it is cost effective. It may also prove compelling associated with silicon pixel detectors. Therefore it is a new technology that may find a wide range of applications in subatomic physics. This grant application is a timely opportunity for Canada to play a pioneering role in the emergence of this technology for use in subatomic physics. ********