New encapsulation technology for HPGe detectors

P. Reiter; J. Eberth; H. Hess; S. Thiel

doi:10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01574-w

2023 Impact factor 2.6

Hadrons and Nuclei

Open Access

Eur. Phys. J. A (2025) 61: 100
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-025-01574-w

Regular Article

New encapsulation technology for HPGe detectors

P. Reiter^a, J. Eberth, H. Hess and S. Thiel

Institut für Kernphysik, University of Cologne, Zülpicher Strasse 77, 50937, Köln, Germany

^a preiter@ikp.uni-koeln.de

Received: 25 February 2025
Accepted: 15 April 2025
Published online: 10 May 2025

Abstract

A new encapsulation technology for HPGe detectors operating in ultra high vacuum or in inert atmosphere of high purity gas was developed. The high-purity Ge detectors for radiation detection is based on a reusable receptacle or enclosure. The main mechanical parts, the detector capsule and the lid are connected in a vacuum-tight manner with an elastic metallic seal which works in the wide temperature range from liquid nitrogen to $+ 105^{\circ}$ $+105^\circ$ with a leak rate below $10^{- 10}$ $10^{-10}$ mbar $\cdot$ $\cdot$ l/s. A UHV quality below $10^{- 7}$ $10^{-7}$ mbar or a gas purity better than N5.0 (99.999%) is ensured. The capsule and the lid can be dismounted manually without machining. The mechanical parts can be reused maintaining the performance in the whole temperature range and the requested low leak rate. The new technology is already being used for various types of detectors. In addition to the advantages, the results obtained do not show any changes in the excellent properties of HPGe detectors in terms of energy resolution or other essential features.

Communicated by Wolfram Korten.

© The Author(s) 2025

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.