Studies of radiation damage and mitigation strategies for the SiPM of the ePIC-dRICH detector at the EIC

The dRICH detector of the ePIC experiment at the EIC will be equipped with SiPM sensors. SiPMs have excellent performance for efficient photodetection in high-magnetic field environments, but they are very sensitive to radiation damage. Rigorous testing is needed to ensure that their dark count rate (DCR) is kept under control over the years of running. The DCR can be maintained to an acceptable rate by reducing the SiPM operating temperature and by recovering the radiation damage with high-temperature annealing cycles. We present an overview of the current status of the R&D performed on significant samples of SiPM sensors. The devices have undergone proton and neutron irradiations aimed at studying their performance with increasing NIEL doses up to $ 10^{11}$ 1 MeVn $ _{eq}$/cm $ ^2$, the device recovery with long high-temperature annealing cycles and the reproducibility of the performance in repeated irradiation-annealing cycles. We also studied the use of the self-heating capabilities of the SiPM to exploit the Joule effect as an effective way to perform the high-temperature annealing in situ.