Next-generation liquid xenon (LXe) Time Projection Chambers (TPCs) for WIMP dark matter searches aim to double their drift length compared to current detectors. This scale-up introduces not only mechanical and production challenges but also pushes into largely unexplored territory: the interplay between conductors, LXe, and high voltage (HV) in ultra-pure environments.
MOTION, a 70 kg LXe TPC...
With the increasing size of dual-phase liquid xenon time projection chambers (LXe TPCs), several technological challenges arise, in particular concerning the scalability and stability of high-voltage electrodes. Large-area electrodes are increasingly exposed to mechanical sagging, electrostatic distortions, and backgrounds from spurious electron emission.
The XeLab project addresses these...
The XENONnT experiment, operating at the INFN Gran Sasso Laboratory, continues its search for rare events using a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber (TPC) containing $5.9\,\text{t}$ of xenon inside the detector cryostat. Recent results include new limits on WIMP dark matter based on a $3.1\,\text{tonne}$-year exposure, as well as the first indication of solar $^{8}\text{B}$ neutrino...
The search for neutrinoless double beta decay is of paramount importance to discovering physics beyond the Standard Model. Liquid xenon time projection chambers are a powerful technology for such searches using the isotope 136Xe: the monolithic xenon target is scalable and provides strong self-shielding, enabling extremely low-background searches. Existing detectors have also demonstrated...
Searched for over half a century with detectors of increasing size and sensitivity, neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay offers a means to explore whether neutrinos are massive Majorana fermions and thus a portal between matter and antimatter. nEXO is a five-tonne liquid xenon time projection chamber (LXe TPC) to search for 0νββ decay of xenon-136 with a half-life sensitivity >10^28 years....
The Light-only Liquid Xenon (LoLX) experiment, operating at McGill University and TRIUMF, characterizes liquid xenon (LXe) scintillation and silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) performance. The detector consists of a 4-cm cube instrumented with an array of HPK VUV4 and FBK HD3 SiPMs. In this work, we present detector response measurements using $^{133}$Ba and $^{137}$Cs gamma sources. We developed...
Xenon, in both gaseous and liquid phases, is an excellent target material for rare-event searches due to its excellent scintillation properties. While ultraviolet (UV) scintillation in xenon is well established and widely exploited in current detectors, scintillation in the infrared (IR) remains largely unexplored. This contribution presents recent progress in the characterization of xenon IR...
Next-generation xenon experiments designed to search for dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay, such as XLZD, require even lower concentrations of electronegative impurities and radioactive noble gases such as argon, krypton and radon in the xenon target. The levels of electronegative impurities must be so low that electrons in LXe can drift over a distance of 3 m without significant...
The XLZD (XENON-LZ-DARWIN) collaboration is developing the next-generation observatory for dark matter, neutrino and rare-event physics. The detector will use a dual-phase xenon time projection chamber (TPC) with 60 tonnes of active xenon in a volume of approximately 3 meters in both height and diameter.
Xenoscope, at the University of Zurich, is a vertical demonstrator built to address the...
Xenon and argon have historically been among the most successful target materials for dark matter searches using direct‑detection experiments in underground laboratories. Xenon benefits from its larger atomic size, while the lighter argon nucleus allows for larger recoil energies when struck by a GeV‑scale dark matter particle, particularly in experiments that measure charge or nucleation. To...
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) employs large liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs) to address key questions in neutrino physics and astroparticle physics. Efficient detection of scintillation light is essential for event timing, triggering, and low-energy physics, motivating studies of liquid argon doped with xenon as a wavelength-shifting and light-enhancing medium....
The DEAP-3600 experiment is one of the world’s most sensitive liquid-argon (LAr) dark-matter search, operating 2 km underground at SNOLAB with a 3.3-tonne LAr target. The experiment continues to collect WIMP-search data and will resume extended data acquisition following completion of its current detector-upgrade campaign. In this talk, I will present a detailed overview of the recently...
