Large-Scale Detector Testing for the GAPS Si(Li) Tracker

Lithium-drifted silicon [Si(Li)] has been used for decades as an ionizing radiation detector in nuclear, particle, and astrophysics experiments, though such detectors have frequently been limited to small sizes (
${\text {few cm}^{2}}$
) and cryogenic operating temperatures. The 10-cm-diameter Si(Li) detectors developed for the General Antiparticle Spectrometer (GAPS) balloon-borne dark matter experiment are novel particularly for their requirements of low cost, large sensitive area (
${\sim 10 \text {m}^{2}}$
for the full 1440-detector array), high temperatures (near −40°C), and energy resolution below 4 keV full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) for 20–100-keV x-rays. Previous works have discussed the manufacturing, passivation, and small-scale testing of prototype GAPS Si(Li) detectors. Here, we show for the first time the results from the detailed characterization of over 1100 flight detectors, illustrating the consistent intrinsic low-noise performance of a large sample of GAPS detectors. This work demonstrates the feasibility of large-area and low-cost Si(Li) detector arrays for next-generation astrophysics and nuclear physics applications.