Electrostatic Simulation Studies in NTL (Neganov-Trofimov-Luke) Detector Geometries

Presenting computational studies of High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) detectors designed for future cryogenic neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments like CUPID. These detectors utilize the Neganov-Trofimov-Luke (NTL) effect, where an applied electric field amplifies small thermal signals. This amplification relies on creating high-field regions by applying alternating bias voltages to novel concentric electrode patterns on the detector surface.

This work uses the SolidStateDetectors.jl Julia package to perform electrostatic simulations of these HPGe wafer geometries. By solving Poisson's equation for a given 3D geometry and set of bias potentials, we calculate the resulting electric potential and field maps. Simulations confirm that this electrode design successfully creates localized "hotspots" of high electric field in the gaps between electrodes, which are essential for the NTL mechanism.

This computational framework provides essential validation for detector design and fabrication, which has previously been done without simulation support. We will present the simulated field maps and discuss their implications for detector performance, such as NTL gain uniformity.