Proton irradiation of SiPM arrays for POLAR-2

POLAR-2 is a space-borne polarimeter, built to investigate the polarization of Gamma-Ray Bursts and help elucidate their mechanisms. The instrument is targeted for launch in 2024 or 2025 aboard the China Space Station and is being developed by a collaboration between institutes from Switzerland, Germany, Poland and China. The instrument will orbit at altitudes between 340km and 450km with an inclination of [Formula: see text] and will be subjected to background radiation from cosmic rays and solar events. It is therefore pertinent to better understand the performance of sensitive devices under space-like conditions. In this paper we focus on the radiation damage of the silicon photomultiplier arrays S13361-6075NE-04 and S14161-6050HS-04 from Hamamatsu. The S13361 are irradiated with 58MeV protons at several doses up to 4.96Gy, whereas the newer series S14161 are irradiated at doses of 0.254Gy and 2.31Gy. Their respective performance degradation due to radiation damage are discussed. The equivalent exposure time in space for silicon photomultipliers inside POLAR-2 with a dose of 4.96Gy is 62.9years (or 1.78years when disregarding the shielding from the instrument). Primary characteristics of the I-V curves are an increase in the dark current and dark counts, mostly through cross-talk events. Annealing processes at [Formula: see text] were observed but not studied in further detail. Biasing channels while being irradiated have not resulted in any significant impact. Activation analyses showed a dominant contribution of [Formula: see text] particles around 511 keV. These resulted primarily from copper and carbon, mostly with decay times shorter than the orbital period.