Development of cryogenic composite detectors for the dark matter experiments CRESST and EURECA

In the direct dark matter search experiment CRESST as well as in the EURECA project, cryogenic detectors are used as targets for the WIMP search. In order to enable a mass production of these detectors, a so-called composite detector design was introduced. This design involves a separation of the sensor production, i.e. the deposition of the utilized transition edge sensors (TESs), from the annealing process of the absorber crystals. The TES is produced on a separate crystal substrate. Thereafter, the substrate is glued onto the absorber crystal. To optimize and understand such a composite detector we developed a thermal detector model, successfully explaining the pulse shapes of the observed signals.