Neutrinoless double beta decay is a process that violates lepton number conservation. It is predicted to occur in extensions of the standard model of particle physics. This Letter reports the results from phase I of the Germanium Detector Array (GERDA) experiment at the Gran Sasso Laboratory (Italy) searching for neutrinoless double beta decay of the isotope ${}^{76}\mathrm{Ge}$. Data considered in the present analysis have been collected between November 2011 and May 2013 with a total exposure of 21.6 kg yr. A blind analysis is performed. The background index is about $1\times {10}^{-2}\mathrm{counts}/(\mathrm{keV}\mathrm{kg}\mathrm{yr})$ after pulse shape discrimination. No signal is observed and a lower limit is derived for the half-life of neutrinoless double beta decay of ${}^{76}\mathrm{Ge}$, $T_{1/2}^{0\nu }>2.1\times {10}^{25}\mathrm{yr}$ (90% C.L.). The combination with the results from the previous experiments with ${}^{76}\mathrm{Ge}$ yields $T_{1/2}^{0\nu }>3.0\times {10}^{25}\mathrm{yr}$ (90% C.L.).

The Gerda collaboration is performing a search for neutrinoless double beta decay of 76Ge with the eponymous detector. The experiment has been installed and commissioned at the Laboratori Nazionali...

X-cut ${\mathrm{LiNbO}}_3$ crystals were implanted at room temperature by 5.0 MeV ${\mathrm{O}}^{\text{3+}}$ ions with doses ranging from ${\text{1.0×10}}^{14}$ to ${\text{6.0×10}}^{14}\hspace{0.17em}{\mathrm{O/cm}}^2.$ Secondary ion mass spectrometry profiles of atomic species migration as well as damage profiles by the Rutherford backscattering channeling technique and refractive index variation were investigated as a function of dose and subsequent annealing conditions. Two different kinds of damage produced by oxygen implantation were seen: near-surface damage correlated to electronic stopping, which causes an increase of the extraordinary refractive index, and end-of-ion range damage generated by collision cascades, which decreases the extraordinary refractive index values. The different nature of the two kinds of damage is also seen by the different temperature conditions needed for recovery. Low loss planar optical waveguides were obtained and characterized by the prism coupling technique.