Rejection of Surface Background in Thermal Detectors

Abstract: Thermal detectors have recently achieved a leading position in the fields of neutrinoless double beta decay and dark matter searches thanks to excellent energy resolution and numerous absorber material choices. These detectors operate at temperatures of a few mK and do not have dead layers. Contaminations on the surface of faced materials have thus to be taken into account as sources of background. We propose a scintillation-based approach for rejecting surface background and discuss the innovative application of this technique in non-scintillating bolometric detectors.