Eur. Phys. J. C (2016) 76: 487
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-016-4331-2

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

First test of an enriched CdWO scintillating bolometer for neutrinoless double-beta-decay searches

¹ National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute”, ITEP, 117218, Moscow, Russia
² Institute for Nuclear Research, MSP, Kyiv, 03680, Ukraine
³ CSNSM, Univ. Paris-Sud, CNRS/IN2P3, Université Paris-Saclay, 91405, Orsay, France
⁴ Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Linnaeus University, 391 82, Kalmar, Sweden
⁵ DISAT, Università dell’Insubria, 22100, Como, Italy
⁶ CEA Saclay, DSM/IRFU, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
⁷ Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia
⁸ INFN, sezione di Roma, 00185, Rome, Italy
⁹ Presently at Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, 80805, Munich, Germany

^* e-mail: andrea.giuliani@csnsm.in2p3.fr

Received: 28 June 2016
Accepted: 22 August 2016
Published online: 3 September 2016

Abstract

For the first time, a cadmium tungstate crystal scintillator enriched in Cd has been succesfully tested as a scintillating bolometer. The measurement was performed above ground at a temperature of 18 mK. The crystal mass was 34.5 g and the enrichment level 82 %. Despite a substantial pile-up effect due to above-ground operation, the detector demonstrated high energy resolution (2–7 keV FWHM in 0.2–2.6 MeV energy range and 7.5 keV FWHM at the Cd double-beta decay transition energy of 2813 keV), a powerful particle identification capability and a high level of internal radio-purity. These results prove that cadmium tungstate is a promising detector material for a next-generation neutrinoless double-beta decay bolometric experiment, like that proposed in the CUPID project (CUORE Upgrade with Particle IDentification).