Physics

Electron

Dark matter

Dark current

Scalar field dark matter

Particle physics

Optics

Inelastic scattering

Engineering

Semiconductor detector

Atomic physics

Photon

Dark energy

Nuclear physics

Scattering

Recoil

Sensitivity (control systems)

Electronic engineering

Cosmology

Astrophysics

Dark photon

Weakly interacting massive particles

Detector

Physical Review Letters

We present the first limits on inelastic electron-scattering dark matter and dark photon absorption using a prototype SuperCDMS detector having a charge resolution of 0.1 electron-hole pairs (CDMS HVeV, a 0.93 g CDMS high-voltage device). These electron-recoil limits significantly improve experimental constraints on dark matter particles with masses as low as 1 MeV/c^{2}. We demonstrate a sensitivity to dark photons competitive with other leading approaches but using substantially less exposure (0.49 g d). These results demonstrate the scientific potential of phonon-mediated semiconductor detectors that are sensitive to single electronic excitations.

First Dark Matter Constraints from a SuperCDMS Single-Charge Sensitive Detector