engineering

When scientists begin taking data with the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment in the mid-2020s, they’ll be able to peer 13.8 billion years into the past and address one of the biggest unanswered questions in physics: Why is there more matter than antimatter? To do this, they’ll send a beam of neutrinos on an 800-mile journey from Fermilab to Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. To detect neutrinos, researchers at several DOE national laboratories, including Fermilab, are developing integrated electronic circuitry that can operate in DUNE’s detectors — at temperatures around minus 200 degrees Celsius. They plan to submit their designs this summer.

Today’s quantum computing processors must operate at temperature close to absolute zero, and that goes for their electronics, too. Fermilab’s cryoelectronics experts recently hosted a first-of-its-kind workshop where leaders in quantum technologies took on the challenges of designing computer processors and sensors that work at ultracold temperatures.

From Aurora Beacon-News, Fermilab scientists and engineers are hoping to understand neutrinos — tiny particles that many feel hold the key to answering many questions about the universe — and are using a very large thermometer to do it.

From Kane County Connects, Dec. 4, 2018: Illinois media marvels at the 25-foot-high thermometer built for ProtoDUNE.

How do you transport 70,000 tons of liquid argon nearly a mile underground?

You can’t buy electronics for particle detectors off the shelf. Farah Fahim is one of the engineers who designs them.