The dark-PMT: A novel directional light dark matter detector based on vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes

The ANDROMeDa project, recently funded by the italian ministry of research with a 1M€ grant, has the objective of developing, over the course of the next three years, a novel dark matter (DM) detector based on carbon nanotubes: the ‘dark-PMT’. Such a detector would be sensitive to DM-electron recoils in the eV energy range, and could have world-leading sensitivity for DM masses below 30 MeV with an exposure of only 1g⋅year. Significant R&D is needed to produce carbon nanotubes with ideal properties for a DM target. In particular two by-products of synthesis (non-aligned crust layer and the sub-μm ‘waviness’) are expected to reduce electron transmission probability, and therefore need to be minimized. This will be done via a precise tuning of the evaporation and growth parameters, and of post-growth plasma etching.