Massive cryogenic particle detectors with low energy threshold

Abstract We have developed massive cryogenic particle detectors to be used in the CRESST dark matter search. Each detector is made of a sapphire crystal and a tungsten superconducting phase transition thermometer. In this paper, we report on the results obtained with four 262 g detectors, which show energy thresholds as low as 350 eV and good energy resolution at low energies. The shape of the experimental pulses, the linearity of the detector response and the energy dependence of the resolution are discussed.