Rejection of surface background in thermal detectors

A challenging aspect of the next generation detector for rare events searches (i.e. neutrinoless double beta decay and dark matter searches) is the reduction of the background in the region of interest that can mimic the expected signals. In the field of thermal detectors, which have a leading role in rare events searches thanks to their excellent energy resolution and to the wide choice of absorber materials, the background coming from surface contaminations is frequently dominant. A background surface rejection detector is a scintillation-based approach for tagging this type of background. We discuss the innovative application of this technique in non-scintillating thermal detectors. We will report on the performances of the prototype bolometric detector, realized to prove the feasibility of this new technique. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York.