Characterisation of silicon photomultipliers in a dilution refrigerator down to 9.4 mK towards a cryogenic cosmic-ray muon veto system

Abstract We report the characterisation of a FBK NUV-HD-cryo silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) sensor operated in a 9.4 ± 0.2 mK environment inside a dilution refrigerator, towards the development of a cryogenic cosmic-ray muon veto system to be operated internal to a dilution refrigerator required for low background experiments such as the QUEST-DMC dark matter search experiment. We characterise the single photon response and the gain (the charge produced per detected photon), the dark count noise rate, and correlated noise contributions as a function of operating voltage. This paper also reports first proof-of-concept measurements of using a SiPM coupled to scintillator internal to a dilution refrigerator, towards detecting high-energy events consistent with candidate cosmic-ray muon signals.