Study of large area avalanche photodiode for detecting liquid xenon scintillation

A large area avalanche photodiode (LAAPD) has been investigated as a possible photosensor for detecting liquid xenon scintillation. The LAAPD proved to be operational at the temperature of liquid xenon (down to -105/spl deg/C) with the dark current significantly reduced with respect to that at room temperature (less than 1 pA versus 30 nA at 20/spl deg/C). The bias voltage needed to achieve a certain gain is found to decrease linearly with decreasing temperature at a rate of 2.3 V//spl deg/C.