SiPM response to radiation damage and annealing treatment for the EIC dual-radiator RICH.

Silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) are one of the potential photodetector technologies for the dual-radiator Ring-Imaging Cherenkov (dRICH) detector at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). To have a deeper insight on this issue of their susceptibility to radiation damage a campaign of characterisation of various sensors has been undertaken within the INFN EIC_NET Initiative. The characterisation campaign focused on measuring $I\mbox{-}V$ curves, to determine $V_{bias}$ and $R_{quench}$, and light response to measure Dark Count Rate (DCR) and Photon detection efficiency in various conditions. These sensors have then been uniformly irradiated with a flux of $10^9$ 1-MeV $n_{eq}/{cm}^2$ at the Protontherapy Center in Trento in collaboration with INFN TIFPA with a $140 {MeV}$ proton beam. A campaign to test the full readout chain has also been undertaken, based on the first 32-channel prototypes of the ALCOR ASIC chip. In this contribution I will discuss the results for several SiPM sensors, both for the $I\mbox{-}V$ characterisation and for the light response at different stages: brand new, irradiated and annealed. Future prospects for the use of these results for the dRICH of the detector 1 at EIC will be discussed.