High-Voltage Phenomena and Mitigation Studies at the Stanford Liquid Xenon High-Voltage Observatory

Large-scale noble-liquid experiments have consistently encountered high-voltage phenomena (HVPs) before reaching their design electric-field configurations. These HVPs often require special conditioning procedures or ultimately limit the experiment's performance in probing fundamental properties of the universe. As noble-liquid detectors continue to scale in mass and physics sensitivity, managing high-voltage behavior becomes increasingly challenging. This presentation will discuss the results of a 10 kg liquid xenon experiment at Stanford that has observed a variety of HVPs using multiple pairs of solid, polished, electrodes with 15 cm^2 area oriented in a plane-to-plane geometry with the ability to explore fields up to 60 kV/cm. The emphasis of the experiment is to explore the impact on HVP mitigation from depositing thin films of metals and insulators onto the surfaces of electrodes. A comparison of the performance of bare stainless steel, platinum, and magnesium-fluoride-coated electrodes will be presented.