VUV reflectance measurements for materials relevant to argon and xenon experiments

Abstract Accurate knowledge of material reflectance in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) range is crucial for optimizing photon detection in noble gas detectors such as DUNE. Despite its importance, reflectance values for detector materials in the VUV region remain poorly characterized, with literature values showing significant variation depending on surface termination and finish. An angular-resolved reflectance measurement system developed at the Instituto de Física Corpuscular at Valencia (IFIC) that operates in a gaseous argon atmosphere is presented, enabling realistic measurements of detector materials under controlled conditions. The setup couples a deuterium lamp to a monochromator and employs a motorized PMT rotating around the sample to measure reflected light distributions across a wide angular range. We have characterized two key DUNE materials — aluminum field cage profiles and stainless steel cryostat membranes — in both the UV-VIS (300–500 nm) and VUV (128–200 nm) ranges. In the UV-VIS region, we confirm literature values of approximately 60% reflectance for aluminum and 40% for stainless steel. Preliminary VUV measurements at 45° angle of incidence yield reflectance values of 10–15% for both materials, significantly lower than their UV-VIS counterparts. The reflected light distributions exhibit a mixed character between specular and diffuse reflection. These results have direct implications for detector simulations and light yield predictions in next-generation experiments.