Large mass bolometers are used in particle physics experiments to search
for rare processes, like neutrinoless double beta decay and dark matter
interactions.
In the next years the CUORE experiment (a 1 Ton detector composed by
1000 crystals of TeO2 operated as bolometers in a large cryostat at
10mK) will be the particle physics experiment with the highest chance of
discovering the Majorana neutrino, a long standing and yet fundamental
question of particle physics.
The study presented in this book was performed on the bolometers of the
CUORE experiment. The response function of these detectors is not linear
in the energy range of interest, and it changes with the operating
temperature, worsening the performances. The nonlinearity appeared to be
dominated by the thermistor and the biasing circuit used to read the
bolometer, and was modeled using few measurable parameters.
A method to obtain a linear response is the result of this work. It
allows a great improvement of the detector operation and data
analysis.
With a foreword by Fernando Ferroni.