Detection of the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) scintillation light produced by
liquid noble elements is a central challenge in order to fully exploit the
available timing, topological, and calorimetric information in detectors
leveraging these media. In this paper, we characterize a novel, windowless
amorphous selenium based photodetector with direct sensitivity to VUV light. We
present here the manufacturing and experimental setup used to operate this
detector at low transport electric fields (2.7-5.2 V/μm) and across a wide
range of temperatures (77K-290K). This work shows that the first
proof-of-principle device windowless amorphous selenium is robust under
cryogenic conditions, responsive to VUV light at cryogenic temperatures, and
preserves argon purity. These findings motivate a continued exploration of
amorphous selenium devices for simultaneous detection of scintillation light
and ionization charge in noble element detectors