Study of the Properties of GSO:Ce for Applications in Dual-Bolometers

Gd2SiO5:Ce (GSO:Ce) features excellent luminescence properties and high stopping power; thus, it is a potential absorption medium for phonon-scintillation simultaneous detection bolometers (dual-bolometers). A possible application of a GSO:Ce dual-bolometer is to probe the neutrinoless double beta decay of Gd-160 isotopes. The particle-discrimination performance of dual-bolometers mainly depends on the scintillator's luminescence property and quenching factor (QF) at low temperatures. In this work, these properties of GSO:Ce are measured with light detectors at low temperatures. GSO:Ce shows a significant quenching effect down to 30 K, indicating GSO:Ce is a potential option for dual-bolometers. The expected performance of the GSO:Ce dual-bolometer is studied with Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. The simulation results show that the dominant radioactive background can be effectively suppressed and the expected upper limit of the half-life time of Gd-160 is calculated.