CRYOGENIC PARTICLE DETECTORS

A review of cryogenic particle detectors is presented. A major motivat ion for developing this type of particle detector is their superior se nsitivity to weakly ionizing particle interactions. This makes them su itable devices for detecting solar neutrinos via the coherent neutrino scattering off nuclei and for detecting non-baryonic dark matter cand idates in our galactic halo. Cryogenic particle detectors have reached , and in some cases already surpassed, the high energy resolution of t he best semiconducting detectors, and they have the potential of becom ing the next generation of high-resolution detectors. The emphasis of this review is on the basic condensed matter physics of these low-temp erature detectors and to present an overview of the present experiment al status.This review was received in October 1995 (C) 1996 IOP Publis hing Ltd