Measurement of high-pressure xenon gas absorption in acrylic

Abstract

Acrylic is a popular structural material in experiments requiring low background because of its radio-purity, machinability, and mechanical strength. However, its porosity may cause significant gas absorption and influence the detector stability in the long term. The interaction between acrylic and other detector materials becomes one of the key concerns in the detector design. In this paper, we carry out an experiment to measure quantitatively the absorption process of high-pressure xenon gas into acrylic. A specific setup is designed for the measurement, and systematic measurements are done to obtain a result of the absorption amount: 0.98 g xenon into 332 g of acrylic.

Latest progress of PandaX-III neutrinoless double beta decay experiment

“…The PCBs are supported by a barrel made of acrylic, which is known for its capability of absorbing air. Therefore a dedicated system was set up to measure the absorption rate of xenon gas into acrylic [11]. It is expected that 70 g of xenon will be absorbed into the PandaX-III field cage in the first half-year, which has little influence on the detector stability.…”