detector R&D

Test beams generally sit to the side of full-on accelerators, sipping beam and passing it to the reconfigurable spaces housing temporary experiments. Scientists bring pieces of their detectors — sensors, chips, electronics or other material — and blast them with the well-understood beam to see if things work how they expect, and if their software performs as expected. Before a detector component can head to its forever home, it has to pass the test.

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment is advancing technology commonly used in dark matter experiments—and scaling it up to record-breaking sizes.

Technology equipment on a table

A doctoral student and his adviser designed a tabletop particle detector they hope to make accessible to budding young engineering physicists.