Developing the First Supply of Underground Argon

The Darkside-50 target was produced as the first application of underground argon. Developing and delivering the target from the ground to the detector took substantial effort. In this talk we will chronicle the efforts taken in the development of the DarkSide-50 target, describing how the source was located, how the gas was purified, and finally how the target was delivered and inserted into the DarkSide-50 detector. The performance and residual ³⁹Ar content will also be discussed.

This presentation was used for the Low-Radioactivity Underground Argon Workshop held at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington on March 19 - 20, 2018.