Design, construction and performance of a liquid xenon and liquid argon ionization chamber

We have constructed an ionization chamber for liquid xenon and liquid argon and have conducted studies of initial ion-electron recombination. Using a 392 keV 113Sn source, we find in xenon a charge collection of (90±5)% at an electric drift field of 1.6 kV/cm and (10±3)% at 10 V/cm. In argon we collect (78±5)% of the charge in a field of 1.6 kV/cm. We have developed a method for measuring the concentration of electronegative impurities in the detector liquid. The purity of the liquid was always better than 2 ppb O2 equivalent. Under these conditions, the energy resolution observed with either liquid in the detector is (12±1)% FWHM at 380 keV in an electric drift field of 1.8 kV/cm for argon and 1.6 kV/cm for xenon. This appears to be a fundamental limit imposed by the statistics of delta electron production.