A very high performance stabilization system for large mass bolometerexperiments

CUORE is a large mass bolometric experiment, composed of 988 crystals, under construction in Hall A of the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratories (LNGS). Its main aim is the study of neutrinoless double beta decay of 130Te. Each bolometer is a 760 g crystal of Tellurium dioxide on which a Nuclear Transmutation Doped Ge thermistor, Ge NTD, is glued with proper thermal contact. The stability of the system is mandatory over many years of data taking. To accomplish this requirement a heating resistor is glued on each detector across which a voltage pulse can be injected at will, to develop a known calibrated heating power. We present the design solution for a pulse generator system to be used for the injection of such a small and short voltage pulse across the heaters. This system is composed by different custom PCB boards each of them having multi-channel independent outputs completely remotely programmable from the acquisition system, in pulse width and amplitude, through an on-board ARM7 microcontroller. Pulse amplitudes must be selectable, in order to handle each detector on its full dynamic range. The resolution of the output voltage is 12 bits over 10 V range. An additional 4 steps programmable voltage attenuator is added at every output. The width of any pulse can range from View the MathML source to 25.5 ms. The main features of the final system are: stability and precision in pulses generation (at the level of less than a ppm/°C), low cost (thanks to the use of commercial components) and compact implementation