A large area superconducting Athermal Phonon Detector (APD), which consists of Aluminum phonon/photon collection fins and Transition-Edge Sensors (TESs), is an advanced particle detection technology which enables light dark matter searches with a sub-eV resolution. While it is well known that a lower transition temperature (Tc) in a TES enhances detection sensitivity, recent experimental data...
We will present the ongoing efforts on development of high precision low-power CMOS detectors for particle detection. Results of detailed characterization using IR-laser in Fermilab and techniques developed to scan the properties of the detector at few micron granularity level. We will present measurements of the performance of the ARCADIA main demonstrator performed in labs and in test beams,...
The Scintillating Bubble Chamber (SBC) collaboration is developing liquid-noble bubble chambers to detect sub-keV nuclear recoils, allowing the search for low-mass (GeV-scale) dark matter and coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering from low-energy (MeV-scale) neutrinos. The scintillating bubble chamber detectors benefit from the energy reconstruction that the scintillation signal gives in...
Three years have passed since the start of the 1ton Water-based Liquid Scintillator (WbLS) at Brookhaven National Lab. This detector is by-far the longest running tonne-scale WbLS detector in the world. Since it started, we have completed two phases and a paper has been published showing the initial performance. In the latest phase, phase-III, we initiated a multi-step WbLS injection from 0.3%...
Hafnium (Hf) is a superconducting material that has been gaining popularity among the superconducting detector community – for e.g. TES bolometers (Rotermund et al. in prep), TES calorimeters (Lita et al. 2009, Safonova et al. 2024), optical and near-IR MKIDs (Zobrist et al. 2019, Coiffard et al. 2020), phonon-sensitive MKIDs (Li et al. in prep), STJ (STAR Cryoelectronics SBIR awarded 2022),...
We present the Crystal Xenon Time Projection Chamber (CXe TPC), a novel particle detector technology as a proposed upgrade to existing LXe TPCs, or as a standalone next-generation particle detector. The dominant background in current LXe dark matter searches is beta decays from radon contamination, which has proven to be ubiquitous, long-lived, and extremely soluble in liquid xenon....
Water-based Liquid Scintillator (WbLS) is an innovative material for constructing large-scale detectors in neutrino and dark matter research. The tunable light yield, enabled by an inline circulation system, allows for flexible detector optimization for different physics searches. With adequate photosensor coverage, detecting low-intensity light can reconstruct the momentum of energetic...
We describe the first experimental demonstration of the beta momentum detectors for the proposed QuIPs experiment. The Quantum Invisible Particle Sensor (QuIPS) experiment, introduced at CPAD in 2024, is an optomechanical laser trap surrounded by active pixel detectors searching for heavy sterile neutrino masses in the 10s of keV to few MeV regime via weak nuclear decays. The experimental...
The scalability of sub-Kelvin superconducting sensors is generally limited by their associated superconducting readout electronics, motivating multiplexing schemes which reduce the system complexity, cost, and thermal load on the refrigerator. Microwave SQUID multiplexing, which inherently has access to ~100x the operation bandwidth of alternative schemes, is a compelling candidate for future...
The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment is a direct detection dark matter experiment located 4,850 feet underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota. The core of the detector is a dual-phase Time Projection Chamber that utilizes 7 tonnes of active liquid xenon as its target medium to search for dark matter interactions. The primary candidate of interest is the Weakly...
In low duty cycle machines, such as linear and muon colliders, collision happen only in a small fraction of the total operational time. Currently, most of the developments of Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor (MAPS) focus on circular colliders, with a continuous time analog front-end. In this contribution we propose a time-variant analog front-end, which, when operated synchronously with the...
Future kilotonne-scale neutrino detectors, such as Theia, aim to leverage new and emerging technologies to simultaneously measure Cherenkov and scintillation light, to enable rich science programs and nonproliferation efforts. To achieve these goals, these hybrid detectors will exploit fast timing photodetectors, novel liquid scintillators, and spectral sorting techniques.
This talk...
Dark matter candidates on the mass scale of $\mathcal{O}(10-10^4)\,\mathrm{keV}$ produce $\mathcal{O}(1-10^3)\,\mathrm{meV}$ phonon excitations. Probing these low-mass dark matter candidates requires quantum sensors with meV phonon energy resolution ($\sigma_E$). Transition edge sensors (TESs) have achieved the lowest energy threshold so far, with $\sigma_E \sim...
ICARUS is the largest Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) in operation and serves as the Far Detector of the Short Baseline Neutrino (SBN) program at Fermilab. Precise detector calibration is essential for reliable energy reconstruction and for maximizing the physics reach of the experiment. In this talk, I will describe the energy and timing calibration procedures developed at...
Since the entry to the precision era for the nuclear and high-energy physics communities, excellent particle detection capability is highly demanded for each part of the detection system. A homogeneous EM-Calorimeter could provide excellent energy resolution for electrons and photons in a wide dynamic range allowing rapidity coverage, particle containment and granularity. However, concerns of...
The ePIC Silicon Vertex Tracker (SVT) for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) will be the largest Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor (MAPS) based detector ever constructed for a high-energy or nuclear physics experiment. It comprises three major subsystems: an ultra-low-mass inner barrel surrounding the beam pipe, a large-area outer barrel providing extended pseudorapidity coverage, and precision...
Searching for light dark matter between 10keV and 100MeV requires noval sub-eV threshold detectors. Superconducting sensors that detects phonons from the crystal substrate is a promising direction. In addition to the mature transition edge sensors (TESs), kinetic inductance devices (KIDs) provide another option, which has the advantage of up-scaling with multiplexed readout.
We work on...
Here, we present the LLNL Cosmic Sandwich, a detector consisting of three cm2-scale sapphire substrates layered in close vertical proximity. The middle section of the Sandwich comprises an array of transmons patterned on the surface, and the top and bottom substrates each have grids of microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs). This detector package enables tagging of events that are...
Future collider experiments and upgrades in high-energy physics (HEP) and nuclear physics (NP) demand vertex and tracking detectors that combine extreme granularity, minimal material budget, and precise timing. The Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) carried out development of a 1-megapixel monolithic active pixel sensor (MAPS) prototype addresses these needs by uniting binary event-driven...
The Noble Liquid Test Facility (NLTF) at Fermilab is a liquid argon detector R&D facility open to the national and international HEP community. The facility consists of 4 permanent cryostats, ranging from 250L up to 3000L, open space for small open dewar testing and an optical test stand facility capable of measuring the optical properties of materials and characterizing photon detectors....
Phonon-sensitive Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are promising superconducting sensor candidates, offering scalability and lower energy resolution for fundamental physics experiments such as low-mass dark matter direct detection and neutrinoless double beta decay searches. Energy resolution of the sensor to phononic signal can be improved by improving phonon collection...
Efficient power conversion and distribution is an important consideration for advanced detectors as power requirements and channel density increase. Future detectors will have unique requirements such as very low mass, and ability to operate in environments with high magnetic fields or radiation. Switched power converters using inductive elements are difficult to miniaturize, generate...
No large-scale, noble-liquid element experiment has ever reached its design electric field configuration without first encountering high-voltage phenomena (HVPs) that either require special procedures to address, or ultimately limit the ability of the experiment to measure properties of the universe. Noble-liquid detectors will only encounter harsher high-voltage challenges as they scale in...
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners detect gamma rays resulting from a tracer chemical like fluorine-18.. These gamma rays have been detected in a pixelated Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) optimized for neutrino physics studies. These tests have in part motivated the optimization and design of a LArTPC for application in PET. This talk will present the simulations and...
The post-inflationary QCD axion is a sharp BSM theory target that spans a frequency range from 5 to 50 GHz known as the classical window. At these higher frequencies, linear amplifiers as cavity haloscope receivers are severely degraded in sensitivity by the standard quantum limit: $P_\mathrm{bkgd}=h\nu\Delta\nu$. For calorimetric measurements, this limit can be evaded through the use of...
With decades of null results from direct detection experiments for dark matter with mass above ~1 GeV, sub-GeV dark matter has become an increasingly compelling alternative. At such masses, we expect meV-scale nuclear recoil energies, where phonons are the dominant energy excitation. Superconducting charge qubits demonstrate sensitivity to single quasiparticle tunneling events, a property that...
The CMS experiment’s High Granularity Calorimeter (HGCAL) upgrade will replace CMS’s existing endcap calorimeters in preparation for the High Luminosity LHC. To effectively use over 6 million channels of this “imaging” calorimeter, CMS has developed two novel Endcap Concentrator (ECON) ASICs to perform data compression/selection on detector. The ECON-D ASIC operates on the 750kHz data path,...
The future Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) experiment will require unprecedented levels of precision to reach its physics goals. To this end, efficient reconstruction of photons produced in neutrino-nucleus scattering will be essential. This talk will present a new Compton scattering gamma-ray reconstruction tool that can associate blip-like energy depositions with a primary...
Superconducting qubits offer a promising new platform for detectors as a result of their natural sensitivity to their environment. In recent years superconducting qubits have made huge strides in performance and quality. These devices have already demonstrated exceptional sensitivity for prototype dark matter searches due to their high sensitivity. As qubits achieve higher coherence times, the...
The Americium-Beryllium (AmBe) source is well-known for the use of gamma and neutron detection calibration in large-scale liquid detectors. At Brookhaven National Lab, we designed a new type of AmBe source combining with Lutetium–yttrium oxyorthosilicate (LYSO) crystal. By combining them, the single PE calibration for the PMTs in the liquid detector can be done with the intrinsic LYSO crystal...
With ASICs becoming more complex and traditional verification frameworks, such as UVM, requiring specialized knowledge, alternatives such at the cocotb python-based frameworks become attractive. In an academic environment, students who are already familiar with python can quickly be leveraged to write testbenches for complex ASICs. This talk will give a brief introduction to cocotb using our...
TinyTPC is a compact Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC) with a pixelated LArPix readout, used for R&D on improving energy reconstruction for low-energy events through enhanced ionization charge creation. We investigate the use of isobutylene, a photosensitive dopant with an ionization energy well-matched to argon scintillation light. Since scintillation light in LArTPCs is typically...
Impacts from high-energy particles have been demonstrated to cause correlated errors in superconducting qubits by increasing the quasiparticle density in the Josephson junction (JJ) leads. These correlated errors are particularly harmful as they cannot be remedied via conventional error correcting codes. It was recently demonstrated that these correlated errors can be reduced or eliminated by...
In preparation for HL-LHC operation, a number of new detector systems are being constructed with timing precision on physics objects of ≤50 picoseconds. These time stamps will reduce the level of pileup induced backgrounds as the number of interactions per crossing will reach of order 100-200.
In this report we note that this high pileup level will necessitate a new approach to calibration of...
Noble element detectors are currently one of the most attractive technologies for rare-event search experiments, such as searches for WIMP dark matter. NEST (Noble Element Simulation Technique) is a software toolkit used to model the microphysics of xenon and argon in both gases and liquids. NEST can be used across a large range of applications, from table-top setups to multi-tonne...
Superconducting qubit sensors are a compelling option for detecting faint signals from dark matter or low energy neutrino interactions. Improving their reach calls for both signal amplification and background suppression. The Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE)--which governs how entanglement reshapes a quantum system's time evolution--addresses both needs. By quantifying these modified time dynamics,...
The calibration of ultra-sensitive THz/meV detectors in cryogenic environments is a significant challenge, as standard fiber optics absorb THz radiation and tunable sources are limited. A system is being developed using a photomixer and hollow circular waveguides to deliver tunable frequency THz photons to cryogenic sensors. This work is motivated by the need to calibrate superconducting...
The El-Pho project, part of the DOE-funded MEERCAT Microelectronics Science Research Center, is developing an integrated electro-photonic platform for near-sensor processing in extreme environments encountered in High Energy Physics (HEP), Nuclear Physics (NP), photon science, and space applications. Future detectors in these domains—such as Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (MAPS) for...
The development of quantum-limited charge amplifiers is enabling new classes of detectors for rare-event physics, with applications in low-mass dark matter and CEvNS. We report on recent progress in the development of a cavity-coupled Cooper pair transistor (cCPT) amplifier, designed to achieve sub single-electron sensitivity while remaining modular and detector-target agnostic. Building on...
The CalVision collaboration is developing a dual-readout calorimeter that can be used for precision electromagnetic and hadronic energy resolution, meeting the requirements of future e+e- colliders. The calorimeter will consist of a homogeneous dual-readout crystal electronic calorimeter in front of a dual-readout fiber hadron calorimeter. In order to understand the data recorded from...
This talk presents an overview of the major national AI initiatives driving today's scientific breakthroughs, focusing on the Department of Energy’s AI for Science efforts, including the FASST and hardware-aware AI programs, and the National Science Foundation’s AI research institutes and AI2 ecosystem. The presentation highlights how these initiatives foster foundational AI model development,...
In particle physics, calorimetry refers to the detection of particles and measurement of their properties by the complete absorption of the particle’s energy in a bulk of a matter, referred to as a calorimeter. Calvision is a consortium of universities and Department of Energy laboratories focused on advancing state-of-the-art calorimetric measurements for all types of particles with a higher...
The ATLAS Inner Tracker (ITk) project saw unexpected sensor fracturing when thermocycling strip modules during pre-production. This critical mechanical failure delayed production worldwide, motivating an innovative test-to-destruction study for diagnosis. Five pre-production modules are thermocycled at progressively wider temperatures, raising sensor bow by 146 ± 27 µm after cycling between...
Kinetic inductance phonon-mediated (KIPM) detectors are superconducting microcalorimeters that show promise in applications toward low-threshold rare-event searches. Despite an excellent sensor energy resolution, the overall energy resolution of KIPM detectors is limited by an observed single-percent phonon collection efficiency. Monte Carlo simulations of charge and phonon processes using the...
The future of high energy physics is dependent on advancements in particle colliders, with lepton colliders being one of the more promising avenues. The FCC-ee is one of these options, providing higher luminosities at Higgs mass or top quark anti-top quark production threshold. However, one of the key challenges in FCC-ee detector design is reducing material budget causing adverse effects and...
Understanding phonon and charge propagation in superconducting devices is essential for low-threshold dark matter and neutrino searches. In this work, we extend G4CMP capabilities to model phonon propagation in novel superconducting materials, including Aluminum, Tantalum, and Niobium. Furthermore, we enable phonon–quasiparticle transport in the interface of superconducting thin film and the...
Homogeneous inorganic scintillator-based calorimeters are the gold standard for electromagnetic energy resolution, but often degrade the hadronic energy resolution achievable at colliders. By incorporating the dual readout technique, we seek to improve the hadronic energy resolution of these calorimeters through the measurement and separation of the scintillation and Cherenkov light in...
We propose to build a straw tracker for FCC-ee experiments. The straw tracker offers the advantage of a low material, a crucial factor in minimizing overall inner detector material budget. With the capability to achieve a single-hit resolution of approximately 100 microns per layer, and the potential for up to 100 layers, the straw tracker will play a pivotal role in momentum measurement,...
The Beta-decay Paul Trap (BPT) at Argonne National Laboratory primarily studies the beta delayed-alpha decays of $^8$Li and $^8$B to measure the beta-neutrino angular correlation coefficient in these decays to search for a tensor contribution to the weak interaction. Additionally, the BPT is able to directly measure the $^8$B unoscillated neutrino spectrum, an important input for current and...
The BeEST experiment searches for physics beyond the standard model (BSM) in the neutrino sector by measuring the recoiling daughter from the electron capture (EC) decay of 7Be. The 7Be is embedded in superconducting tunnel junction (STJ) sensors such that the low-energy (eV-scale) decay products are detected with sub-eV energy resolution. Modelling of low-energy backgrounds in the SiO2/Si...
Calorimeters play a central role in high-energy physics experiments by enabling precise energy measurements and providing critical information for particle identification and event reconstruction. Advances in calorimeter technology are essential to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of future collider experiments—such as the FCC and muon colliders—as well as non-collider experiments...
High spatial and temporal resolution detectors will be critical to operate in the conditions created by future colliders. Based on the input from the 4D Tracking detector workshop at SLAC in September 2024 we have derived a proposal for a 4D Pixel detector demonstrator project. The project aims to coalesce multiple current R&D efforts in the US, better understand high precision timing systems...
We propose a high-precision, fast, robust and cost-effective muon detector concept for an FCC-ee experiment. This design combines precision drift tubes with fast plastic scintillator strips to enable both spatial and timing measurements. The drift tubes deliver two-dimensional position measurements perpendicular to the tubes with a resolution around 100~$\mu$m. Meanwhile, the scintillator...
Calorimeters play a critical role in current and future high-energy physics experiments. Building on the success of earlier dual-readout calorimeter (DREAM) studies, we developed the HG-DREAM calorimeter at Texas Tech University—a highly granular dual-readout fiber detector instrumented with 896 silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs). Compared to the original DREAM module using photomultiplier...
Superconducting qubits are intrinsically sensitive to environmental fluctuations, making them promising platforms for sub-eV energy sensing. In this regime, qubits can operate as Cooper pair breaking detectors, where incident energy generates phonons in the substrate (eg; Sapphire) that subsequently break Cooper pairs in the qubit’s superconducting film. The resulting quasiparticles tunnel...
Calorimeters play a central role in high-energy physics experiments by enabling precise energy measurements and providing critical information for particle identification and event reconstruction. Advances in calorimeter technology are essential to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of future collider experiments, such as the FCC and muon collider, as well as non-collider experiments...
Cluster counting (dN/dx) offers significant promise for enhanced particle identification (PID) resolution compared to traditional dE/dx methods by measuring the number of primary ionization acts per unit length. However, future detectors such as IDEA operating under high-speed digitization face unprecedented data transfer rate challenges. We are developing advanced ML algorithms that...
When an ionizing particle interacts with the substrate of a superconducting qubit chip, it generates athermal phonons that propagate through the material, breaking Cooper pairs in the superconducting film and inducing quasiparticle poisoning. This process increases correlated error rates, posing a significant challenge for the development of fault-tolerant quantum computing. Additionally, the...
Muon colliders have emerged as an exciting option for enabling access to the 10 TeV energy scale in the post High Luminosity LHC era in a compact and power-efficient way compared to proton-proton alternatives. However, significant research and development is required to address the fundamental challenge that muons are unstable, and will decay continuously while moving through an accelerator...
The next generation of collider experiments will require electromagnetic calorimetry with unprecedented precision in both timing and energy resolution, alongside robust radiation hardness. The RADiCAL (RADiation-hard Innovative CALorimeter) prototype has been developed to address these challenges, thus far achieving sub-20 ps timing performance and excellent EM energy resolution in recent beam...
The prospect of a muon collider has fueled remarkable research and development efforts across physics frontiers. As the high-energy physics community continues to make strides towards the feasibility of a 10 TeV-scale muon collider, both the International and US Muon Collider Collaborations (IMCC and USMCC) have achieved significant progress in detector R&D, producing two potential detector...
The Longitudinally-segmented Forward Hadronic Calorimeter (LFHCal) will be a part of the ePIC detector at the future Electron Ion Collider (EIC). The ePIC forward LFHCal is a steel-plastic scintillator sampling calorimeter, read out in transverse and longitudinally separated segments. The design is based on the SiPM-on-tile concept introduced by CALICE collaboration. In this talk, I will...
High pressure gaseous argon time projection chambers (HPgTPCs) are crucial for many applications, including neutrino oscillation analyses, rare event searches such as coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (CEvNS), and low-energy nuclear recoil detection. Current R&D efforts are focused on testing gas electron multipliers (GEMs) in high-pressure environments, which is critical for...
INFN, in collaboration with FBK (Fondazione Bruno Kessler), is developing a novel type of Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) $-$ the Back-Side Illuminated (BSI) SiPM $-$ within the framework of the IBIS and IBIS_NEXT projects (Innovative Back-Side Illuminated SiPMs). This new sensor architecture introduces a clear separation between the charge collection and multiplication regions of the device,...
Resistive Silicon Devices (RSDs), particularly AC-coupled Low Gain Avalanche Diodes (AC-LGADs), open the path of pico-second level space and time (4D) tracking in high-energy physics (HEP) experiments such as those at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), and future (lepton) colliders facilities. These sensors combine the fine spatial resolution of segmented detectors...
High-pressure gaseous TPCs (HPgTPCs) offer the tracking capabilities of gaseous detectors combined with an increased target density, making them particularly suitable for high-precision neutrino interaction measurements. However, developing readout electronics for these detectors poses unique challenges distinct from collider-based systems. The low occupancy typical of neutrino detection...
The LEGEND experiment searches for neutrinoless double beta decay in $^{76}$Ge-enriched high-purity germanium detectors operating in liquid argon, whose scintillation acts as an active veto against external background events. Using specialized detector geometries, pulse shape discrimination is performed to further veto background events. LEGEND-200 has completed about one year of stable...
Low Gain Avalanche Diodes (LGADs) are prime candidates for high-resolution timing applications in High Energy Physics, Nuclear science, and other fields. When used at hadron colliders, these sensors are required to withstand enormous amounts of radiation while maintaining acceptable performance. When particles interact with highly biased sensors in these high-radiation environments, this can...
Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) have had a transformative impact on experiments in high-energy physics and astrophysics. However, SiPMs face intrinsic limitations in their response to wavelengths below 300 nm, which is crucial for liquid noble scintillation detectors. In this study, we explore AlGaN and GaN semiconductors, which feature a tunable band gap and improved sensitivity in the...
Devices with internal gain, such as Low Gain Avalanche Diodes (LGADs), demonstrate O(30) ps timing resolution, and they play a crucial role in High Energy Physics (HEP) experiments, among other applications. Similarly, resistive silicon devices, such as AC-coupled Low Gain Avalanche Diodes (AC-LGADs) sensors, achieve a fine spatial resolution while maintaining the LGAD’s timing resolution....
High-pressure gaseous TPCs provide increased target density while preserving fine charged-particle tracking. This combination can allow for low energy detection thresholds while maintaining event rates suitable for rare-event searches and neutrino experiments, from sub-MeV nuclear recoils to few-GeV neutrino interactions. In alignment with an RDC 6 priority—developing gas amplification...
The directions of low energy nuclear recoils open windows into previously unprobed areas of physics. Specifically, directional detection of coherent elastic neutrino nucleus scattering (CE𝜈NS) would probe for new, beyond-the-standard-model (BSM) gauge bosons involved in that interaction as well as provide a tool for distinguishing between dark matter and neutrino scattering. This talk presents...
We present an exploratory idea that allows effective fabrication of large-area amorphous selenium detectors with field shaping multiwell structure. Field shaping multi-well structures consists of well-regions produced by Frisch grids within the amorphous selenium vertical architecture. Such structures are usually produced using complex nanofabrication methods to create pillars on a substrate...
Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGADs) are characterized by a fast rise time (~500ps) and extremely good time resolution (down to 17ps), and potential for a very high repetition rate with ~1 ns full charge collection. For the application of this technology to near future experiments such as e+e- Higgs factories (FCC-ee), the ePIC detector at the Electron-Ion Collider, or smaller experiments...
SPLENDOR is a cross-discipline collaboration—involving theorists, condensed matter physicists, and low energy-threshold instrumentation specialists—focused on developing narrow-gap semiconductors to search for Sub-MeV dark matter. SPLENDOR has developed a novel modular detector system that offers adaptability to incorporate newly developed semiconducting materials into an experimental package...
The search for sub-GeV dark matter has pushed for the development of detectors with sub-eV energy resolution. Superconducting sensors have emerged as leading candidates in this effort. A central challenge in this field is achieving lower detector thresholds while minimizing background levels to maximize sensitivity to low-mass dark matter. At SLAC, the DMQIS group is addressing this challenge...
The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) is a next-generation flagship facility being constructed at Brookhaven National Laboratory to explore the properties of nuclear matter and the strong interaction via electron-proton and electron-ion collisions. In this talk, we will present the latest designs of Time-of-Flight detector systems based on the silicon AC-coupled Low Gain Avalanche Diode (AC-LGAD)...
We report on the performance of compact, high definition Time Projection Chambers (TPCs) with pixel chip readout as part of the BEAST II beam background measurement project at SuperKEKB. The TPCs detect fast neutrons by measuring the three dimensional (3D) ionization distribution of nuclear recoils in ${}^4$He:CO${}_2$ gas at atmospheric pressure. We use these detectors to characterize the...
We present a novel UV photon detection method using ZnO/metal thin film architecture operated under surface plasmon resonance (SPR) conditions. Here, we couple a 633 nm probe light to the ZnO/metal thin film via the Kretschmann configuration to excite surface plasmons at the metal-dielectric interface. The reflectance of the probe light under SPR is utilized as the detection signal. The...
PIONEER is a next-generation experiment to measure the charged-pion branching ratio to electrons vs. muons and the pion beta decay with an order of magnitude improvement in precision. A high-granularity active target (ATAR) is being designed to provide detailed 4D tracking information, allowing the separation of the energy deposits of the pion decay products in both position and time. The...
The Flexible, Ideal MPGD system (FIMS) is a collaborative effort to realize a detector whose performance is not limited by technology, but by the fundamental physics of particles interacting with matter. Designed to have applications spanning the extremes of gaseous TPC use-cases, the objective is to achieve ideal performance based on the metrics of: 3D spatial resolution, detection...
Amorphous selenium (a-Se) has become of high interest in detectors for high-
energy physics due to its versatility in application. It exhibits a number of ideal
properties, including a low threshold field for impact ionization (<70 Vμm), high
photoconversion efficiency over a broad range of frequencies, and the capability
for uniform large area fabrication. A-Se can be fabricated on a...
The TESSERACT experiment searches for sub-GeV dark matter with multiple cryogenic target materials and technologies. The HeRALD technology uses superfluid 4He as a target material for dark matter-nucleon scattering. Phonons produced by an atomic recoil trigger the evaporation of 4He atoms into the vacuum. These atoms are then detected calorimetrically using a Transition Edge Sensor (TES) array...
The nature of dark matter is one of the most perplexing open questions in physics today. A particularly compelling dark matter candidate called the QCD axion, if discovered, could simultaneously solve the Strong CP Problem of quantum chromodynamics and account for the missing mass in our universe. The "axion haloscope" is an established detection technique, designed to resonantly convert µeV...
In this talk, I present a proposal for the next generation of fully packaged digital photodetectors based on a light-trapping mechanism called DELTA, Digital End-to-end Light Trap Assembly. The end-to-end development covers incident photons up to the digital signals saved to disk. Main topics of R&D for the DELTA detector include large-area photo-collectors that trap light inside, small-area...
Low gain avalanche detectors with DC- and AC-coupled readout were exposed to ionizing and non-ionizing radiation at levels relevant to future experiments in particle, nuclear, and medical physics, and to astrophysics. Damage-related change in their acceptor removal constants and in the resistivity of the region between the guard ring and the active array are reported, as is change in the...
We report an evaluation of nickel produced via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) for potential use as a general structural material in future, large-scale, low-radioactivity rare-event search experiments in nuclear and particle physics. In particular, this work is focused on assessing both mechanical strength and radiopurity (i.e., concentration of primordial radionuclides $^{232}$Th, $^{238}$U,...
QCD axions are doubly motivated due to their ability to comprise dark matter and solve the strong CP problem. This makes them one of the most promising dark matter candidates. Haloscopes are axion detection experiments that use tunable microwave cavities to resonantly enhance signals from the axion-photon coupling that occurs in the presence of a strong magnetic field. Because the haloscope...
High energy physics (HEP) experiments require high-performance detectors to advance the energy, luminosity, and cosmology frontiers. Photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) have been extensively used to detect scintillation light. In recent years, silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs), an array of single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), have become preferable as a solid-state alternative to PMTs due to their...
There is a high priority in particle physics for research and development into instrumentation motivated by the physics goals of the next generation of experiments. Several challenges need to be addressed, including high pile-up, as future hadron and muon colliders will feature both high in- and out-of-time backgrounds. A time resolution of the order or below ten picoseconds allows for the...
The SERAPH (SupERconducting Axion and Paraphoton Haloscope) experiment is a family of superconducting haloscopes being developed by the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) Center to search for wavelike dark matter. This presentation will focus on preliminary results from our dark photon dark matter search using a widely-tunable SRF cavity operating between 4-7 GHz, nicknamed...
We present the design and performance of the latest version of the Fermilab Constant Fraction Discriminator (FCFD) readout ASIC, FCFDv1.1. The chip was delivered in May 2025, and results were measured in testbedam in July 2025. We will also present the status of the development of the next version of FCFD readout chip. The FCFD will be used to readout the 1-cm long AC-LGAD strip sensors of the...
Dichroic filters, filters that selectively transmit and reflect specific wavelengths while minimizing absorption, are increasingly employed in nuclear and particle physics for photon-detection, including in EOS for Cherenkov and scintillation light separation. In this talk, I will present transmission and reflection measurements of several dichroic filters over a range of angles of incidence...
QUAntum LImited PHotons In the Dark Experiment (QUALIPHIDE) searches for Hidden Photons (HP) as dark matter. Quantum sensing techniques, such as photon counting, enable exploring new phase space for both HPs and axion like particles as candidates for dark matter. We have fielded a deeper than standard quantum limit search with single photon resolving MKIDs. This newest version of QUALIPHIDE...
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment with a near and far detector complex located ~1300 km away from each other. DUNE is planned to have four far detectors modules to achieve its physics goals which includes the determination of neutrino mass hierarchy and the measurement of the CP-violating phase in neutrino oscillations.
During...
Nuclear recoils can produce stable optically-active color centers in many common materials. Advances in light-sheet microscopy now allow rapid large-volume imaging of these materials with micrometer-scale resolution. We present the development of the mesoSPIM light sheet microscope at Virginia Tech, designed for imaging particle tracks relevant to nuclear and high-energy physics, including...
Finding the answers to the long-standing questions, such as, emergence of mass and spin of the proton from partons, saturation of gluon density, and gluon momentum distribution inside the proton and nuclei, motivated the EIC [1] under construction at Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA. The first EIC detector, ePIC (electron Proton-Ion Collision experiment), consists of a central barrel...
We propose a magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM) search for axion dark matter around $m_a\sim \rm GeV$. The experiment leverages the axion's derivative coupling to electrons, which induces an effective A.C. magnetic field on a sample of electron spins polarized by a D.C. magnetic field and a micromagnet. A second pump field at a nearby frequency enhances the signal, and the detuning is...
The Skipper Charge Coupled Device (CCD), used by the SENSEI and DAMIC-M experiments, is currently the leading technology for detecting sub-GeV dark matter due to its single-electron sensitivity and low background rate. Since the start of the SENSEI experiment, one of its main efforts has been on reducing the single-electron backgrounds. Two sources of single-electron backgrounds are dark...
Highly granular precision timing detectors are required to achieve scientific breakthroughs across HEP, NP, BES, and FES applications, and their critical need was highlighted by DOE BRN, European Strategy for Particle Physics, and Snowmass. To enable the development of these detectors, 3D-intgration between advanced sensor wafers and scaled CMOS technology nodes is required but is currently...
Microchannel Plates (MCPs) are utilized for applications ranging from image intensifier tubes and photomultiplier tubes to mass spectrometry and electron microscopy, offering ultra-fast timing and high gain. Conventional lead-glass MCPs have been the industry standard since the 1960s. The manufacturing process includes a hydrogen firing step to reduce the lead oxide surface in the pores,...
We present a novel approach for the detection of sub-GeV dark matter using carbon-based crystals integrated with paramagnetic phonon sensors for low-threshold, low-background athermal phonon sensing. The paramagnetic phonon sensors, consisting of Er-doped Ag metallic films, are directly deposited onto the surfaces of target crystals. Athermal phonons generated by dark matter interactions in...
In recent years, the introduction of very fast optical sensors with extremely low pitches (e.g. Low Gain Avalanche detectors -LGADs) has enabled high-density designs for high energy and nuclear physics detectors offering excellent spatial and timing precision; to harness the extreme spatial and timing resolution achievable with such devices, novel high performance/high channel density...
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) aims to answer fundamental questions about neutrinos, including CP violation, mass hierarchy, and proton decay searches, and to observe neutrinos from supernova bursts. To support these goals, DUNE will implement Power-over-Fiber (PoF) technology to safely deliver power to its Far Detector Vertical Drift (FD-VD) photon detection system. This...
Eos is a hybrid neutrino detector constructed to demonstrate reconstruction techniques that leverage both Cherenkov and scintillation light. Eos is currently filled with 4-tons of water-based liquid scintillator, and employs 200 fast 8" PMTs (R14688-100) with transit time spreads of 1 ns (FWHM) and risetimes of 2.2 ns, as well as 12 spectral sorting dichroicon PMTs to isolate Cherenkov light....
We present a novel optical communication system that can overcome the limitations of conventional wire-based readout. We have coupled this system to a novel clockless Q-Pix design built using Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components. In Q-Pix, charge is read out using a charge-integrate-replenishment circuit that provides replenishment pulses corresponding to the time when a particular...
Caribou is a versatile data acquisition system used in multiple collaborative frameworks (CERN EP R&D, DRD3, AIDAinnova, Tangerine) for laboratory and test-beam qualification of novel silicon pixel detector prototypes. The system is built around a common hardware, firmware and software stack shared across different projects, thereby drastically reducing the development effort and cost. It...
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next generation long-baseline neutrino experiment that will study neutrino oscillations using a high-intensity neutrino beam produced by the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility at Fermilab. The beam will pass through two detector complexes: a near detector complex at Fermilab and a far detector complex located ~1.5 km underground at the Sanford...
We report on the progress of a new fabrication capability for photosensors tailored to the Cherenkov detection requirements of the SoLID experiment. The effort focuses on the development of microchannel plate photomultiplier tubes (MCP-PMTs) within a controlled environment for handling air-sensitive materials. To meet SoLID’s performance needs, the devices are being engineered for high-rate...
ALFE2 is an ATLAS Liquid Argon Calorimeter (LAr) front-end ASIC designed for the High Luminosity-Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) upgrade. ALFE2 comprises four channels of Pre-Amplifiers (PAs) and CR-(RC)2 shapers (SH) with adjustable input impedance. Each shaper has a Low Gain (LG) output and a High Gain (HG) output. Both outputs can be simultaneously read out to cover a 16-bit dynamic range...
Over the past few decades, Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) have emerged as a central technology for rare-event detection, due to their calorimetric and imaging capabilities. Adding a magnetic field to LArTPCs would enable charge identification and momentum measurements via curvature. For neutrino experiments, this is crucial for wrong-sign neutrino rejection, electron/positron...
We report room-temperature and 77 K characterization and modeling of SkyWater 130 nm (Sky130) NMOS and PMOS transistors. Using a custom closed cycle cryostat we measured the I-V characteristics from multiple Sky130 MOSFETs. These MOSFETs were fabricated on a chip manufactured as a part of the Efabless Open Multi-Project Wafer program using the Sky130 CMOS technology node specifically to...
The RICOCHET experiment measures the spectrum of coherent elastic neutrino-nuclear scattering (CEνNS) of reactor neutrinos to search for physics beyond the Standard Model. In RICOCHET’s Q-Array detector, recoil energy deposited in an array of superconducting crystals is transferred to transition-edge sensors (TES). TESes convert the heat signals into current signals, which then get amplified...
Detectors at future colliders will require timing precision on the order of 10 ps. Towards this goal, we’ve developed a low-power, high-speed prototype ASIC in 28nm CMOS named MetaRock. MetaRock is an evolution of the Pebbles ASIC. As compared to its predecessor, MetaRock includes a prototype low-power TDC based on a time stretching circuit. An on chip test bench consisting of a charge...
In this talk, we will present CHARMS250V1, a cryogenic front-end application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) developed using a 65 nm process for low-noise readout of charge or light signals produced in noble liquid detectors. The design of CHARMS250V1 has evolved from the LArASIC chip, which was manufactured in a 180 nm process and has been selected as the first component in the 3-ASIC...
The DUNE far detector phase I consists of two 10-kt fiducial mass Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs), FD-HD (Horizontal Design) and FD-VD (Vertical Design), providing 20-kt of active volume for high-precision neutrino detection and rare event searches. There are 384,000 electrodes over 150 detector units called Anode Plane Arrays (APAs) in FD-HD, and 245,760 electrodes over 80...
In advanced detectors, we observe events of stored energy releases, as well as energy accumulation and delayed release dynamics. Spontaneous burst emission of electrons, photons, phonons, and quasiparticles produces excess backgrounds in different dark matter detectors. Accumulation of unextracted charges on the liquid-gas interface in large dual-phase detectors can lead to surface...
The dual-radiator RICH (dRICH) detector of the ePIC experiment at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) will employ Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) for single-photon Cherenkov light detection. Covering an area of $\sim$ 3 m$^{2}$ with 3$\times$3 mm$^{2}$ pixels and more than 300,000 readout channels, this will be the first collider experiment to utilize SiPMs at such a scale for single-photon...
Future high-energy physics (HEP) and nuclear physics (NP) experiments will depend on increasingly granular, low-mass tracking and vertex detectors to achieve unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. This segmentation trend imposes strict requirements on readout integrated circuits (ROICs): amplification, filtering, amplitude and timing extraction, and higher-level feature analysis must...
We recently started a project to develop a new pathfinding experiment with a new detection concept [1] to explore ultralight axion dark matter in a completely unexplored mass range near 10 neV. Our detection concept is based on a superconducting resonant inductor-capacitor (LC) circuit with an optical quantum sensor (OQS). The target signal we seek to detect is a minute axion-induced magnetic...
After being successfully deployed to readout a subset of the ATLAS subdectors during LHC Run 3 (2022-2026), the FELIX will serve all
ATLAS subdectors in LHC Run 4 (2030-2033). FELIX is a router between custom serial links from front-end ASICs and FPGAs to data collection and processing components via a commodity switched network. FELIX is also responsible for forwarding the LHC clock, fixed...
Fast and efficient processing of data from the tracking detector of the ATLAS experiment is required for the high-luminosity program. The tracking detector is equipped with semiconductor sensors with high-segmentation of about 50 by 50 microns. A charged particle crossing a sensor ionizes a few pixels along its trajectory. Our firmware processes images from the sensors to calculate coordinates...
High-Rate Picosecond Photodetectors (HRPPDs) are micro-channel plate (MCP)-based, DC-coupled photosensors recently developed by Incom, Inc. These sensors offer an active area of 104 mm × 104 mm, a pixel pitch of 3.25 mm, peak quantum efficiency exceeding 30%, low dark count rates, and a timing resolution of approximately 20 ps for single-photon detection. These features make HRPPDs highly...
We present a new cryogenic detector concept that exploits anisotropic phonon focusing in high-purity Ge or Si crystals, combined with high-voltage Luke amplification and phonon spectral filtering, to achieve nuclear recoil (NR) and electronic recoil (ER) discrimination down to ∼1 eV recoil energies. The detector is oriented so that ballistic longitudinal phonons from an event are concentrated...
The tight integration of machine learning (ML) models into detector readout and trigger systems will allow future HEP detectors to move complex reconstruction tasks much closer to the detector compared to the current implementations. This will enable these detectors to cope with much higher data rates and perform more complex and better targeted event selection at trigger level. ML algorithms...
In this talk, we will present our on-going work on the co-design of integrated electro-photonic Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) for real-time charged particle tracking, as part of the El-Pho project within the MEERCAT microelectronics science research center (MSRC). GNNs are a natural fit for particle track reconstruction due to their ability to efficiently process the sparse and irregular data...
We report results from a 12-liter liquid argon test stand at Wellesley College. The system includes a single-pass liquid argon purifier, a double-gridded purity monitor to assess the electron lifetime, and a slow control and data acquisition system. This purifier will support ongoing detector R&D on charge and light readout technologies for future large-scale liquid argon time projection...
The LightPix application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is designed for amplification, triggering, digitization, and multiplexed readout of high-channel count silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) systems, particularly within cryogenic environments. Here we report on performance measurements using LightPix-v3 which includes a variety of enhancements relative to the previous version. A new...
The nEXO experiment, a next-generation liquid xenon time-projection chamber enriched to 90% $^{136}$Xe, will search for neutrinoless double-beta decay with a projected half-life sensitivity of $1.35 × 10^{28}$ years over a 10-year lifespan. Achieving this sensitivity requires high efficiency vacuum-ultraviolet (VUV) silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) to detect xenon scintillation light at 175...
The Qpix ASIC implements a novel idea for reconstruction of tracks by measuring ionization currents as a time correlated collection of unit charges with a programmable unit charge between ½ and 2fC and a minimum time marking interval of 2X the clock (external or internal). Measurement results of bench tests of a 16 channel ASIC at room temperature and at liquid nitrogen temperature with the...
As SuperKEKB approaches its target instantaneous luminosity of $6\times 10^{35}$ cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$, its only particle detector, Belle II comprised of several subdetectors*, is also undergoing constant upgrades and changes. Closer to its target luminosity, the Belle II detector expects to receive very large data samples that have much higher background and radiation levels. Single event upsets...
This project will use on-chip machine learning algorithms to produce intelligent networks. Both conventional digital logic and spike-based neuromorphic implementations will be explored. Two network scales will be prototyped: a multi-chip network, where each element is a complex functionality sensor and many sensors are integrated on a circuit board to form the network (suitable for DUNE or...
Rapid detection of beam losses is essential at large-scale HEP/NP facilities to protect sensitive components from the damaging effects of unstable high-energy beams. To address this for the EIC, we deployed a prototype beam loss monitoring (BLM) system at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), designed to test fast abort capabilities with response times on the order of a single beam...
We characterized a type of Low-Gain Avalanche Diode (LGAD) fabricated at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. LGADs are a type of silicon avalanche photodiodes originally developed for the fast detection of minimum ionizing particles for high-energy particle detectors. We study its detection capability on different types of ionization particles, such as X-rays, gamma-rays, alphas, and examine...
We present the results of testing the novel optical communication scheme for the Q-Pix charge readout in an Argon purity monitoring system. Q-Pix is a novel charge readout scheme which consists of a charge-integrate-replenishment circuit that provides replenishment pulses corresponding to the time when a particular amount of charge is collected. In our optical communication scheme, the...
Low Gain Avalanche Diodes (LGADs) are silicon sensors renowned for their ability to deliver fast timing, especially in high energy and nuclear physics. They achieve a timing resolution of 20-30 picoseconds through an internal multiplication process that creates a controlled avalanche of charge carriers, producing a gain of 10-100. Some variants of LGADs can also track particle trajectories...
Current and future particle trackers are beginning to incorporate timing measurements as part of the readout electronics. The ATLAS HGTD and CMS MTD timing detectors for the HL-LHC are already capable of sub-50 picosecond-level resolution, and tracking detectors for future colliders such as the muon or 10 TeV hadron colliders will require similar or better levels of time resolution with pixel...
The TESSERACT experiment will deploy 3 unique detector modules based on a common transition edge sensor-based readout to search for sub-GeV dark matter. HeRALD will use sensors with silicon or sapphire substrates to image radiative and quasiparticle emission from a target of superfluid helium-4 . SPICE will use sensors fabricated on sapphire and gallium arsenide substrates sensitive to both...
Over the past few decades, Micro Pattern Gaseous Detector (MPGD) technologies have been increasingly adopted as tracking detector options in High Energy and Nuclear Physics experiments thanks to their good spatial resolution, high-rate capability, stability and more importantly their ability for large area coverage at a relatively low cost compared to the alternative. The thin gap GEM-μRWELL...
Waveform digitization remains the baseline method for reading out large scale neutrino detectors consisting of thousands of channels of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). Because events in these detectors happen relatively infrequently, this method results is high cost, high power, and extremely high data volumes. The problems are compounded when considering that modern PMTs with very fast...
Thin Film particle detectors represent a new generation of particle detectors that can be made with scalable fabrication techniques with the aim of a printable design. These fabrication techniques also enable a wider variety of potential detector materials that can achieve high performance through better charge collection properties or faster electron mobilities for better timing. A set of InP...
The versatility of MPGD technology has drawn tremendous interest in both Nuclear and High Energy Physics communities to use as particle detector in experiments. Particle tracking detectors are integral part of Nuclear Physics experiment and MPGDs has established themselves as reliable tracking detectors due to their moderate material budget, low cost, moderate spatial resolution and relatively...
The JLab SoLID experiment is assessing the VMM ASIC family for GEM tracker readout in high-rate environments. The current VMM3a falls short of requirements. We propose a VMM3b revision with optimized gain and shaping time for high-rate GEM and uRWell operation. Additionally, we are considering a VMM4 version, migrating to TSMC 65nm, with redesigned ADCs, digital core, and new features to serve...
Searches for 1-10 GeV dark matter particles with liquid xenon TPCs such as LZ, XENONnT and PandaX-4T are presently limited by instrumental backgrounds consisting of accidental photon coincidence. We have investigated this pathology and conclude that the dominant source of the photons, which follow each particle interaction, is fluorescence of the quartz windows of the photomultiplier tubes....
The upcoming MOLLER experiment at Jefferson Lab (JLab) will measure the parity-violating asymmetry by scattering longitudinally polarized electrons off unpolarized electrons with high precision in a liquid Hydrogen target. The high precision will enable a search for new physics beyond the standard model.
Twenty-eight large area triple Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) detector-packages will be...
PHYS476 at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is an upper-division course that teaches modern electronics through real-world applications in experimental physics. Students gain hands-on experience with digital circuit design, FPGA programming, and AI/ML techniques for real-time data analysis, combining laboratory work with targeted lectures.
The course centers on project-based learning....
The escalating radiation environment at next-generation colliders demands revolutionary advances in detector materials — and Ga₂O₃ emerges as a game-changing candidate poised to redefine innermost solid-state tracking through unparalleled radiation tolerance and thermal resilience. Future high-energy physics experiments will expose tracking layers to particle fluences exceeding 10¹⁵–10¹⁶...
Liquid xenon (LXe) time projection chambers (TPCs) are powerful tools in the search for neutrinoless double beta decay (NDBD), offering a scalable, ultra-low-background technology with excellent energy resolution in the MeV energy range. An important aspect of these detectors is their 3D imaging capability, which enables powerful signal/background discrimination based on the position and...
The explosive growth in data rates being seen by next-generation detectors calls for transformative solutions that integrate intelligence at the edge. In this talk, we will present a smart readout application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that incorporates advanced digital signal processing (DSP) and artificial neural networks (ANNs) directly into the detector front-end. By leveraging...
The development of ultra-low background gadolinium-loaded liquid scintillator (Gd-LS) is critical for current and next-generation experiments in neutrino and rare-event physics, including supernova neutrino detection, reactor monitoring, and as a neutron veto in dark matter searches. The presence of trace radioactive contaminants such as 238U, 232Th, and 40K can introduce backgrounds that...
Large-area Micro-Pattern Gas Detectors (MPGDs) have become key components in the tracking systems of many major ongoing and future electron scattering experiments at Jefferson Lab (JLab). Various large-area Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) trackers have been recently developed and constructed for three highly ranked experimental programs at JLab: the Super Bigbite Spectrometer (SBS), PRad-II, and...
We report on the development and timing performance evaluation of 4H-SiC Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGADs), motivated by their potential for enhanced radiation hardness and fast signal response. The devices were fabricated on custom multi-layer epitaxial 4H-SiC wafers and feature etched termination and field plate designs to improve edge breakdown performance. Using UV-TCT, β-particle, and...
Fine-granularity trackers have the potential to enhance high-priority physics in challenging environments of future high-energy experiments. This requires intelligent ways to overcome the strict bandwidth and power constraints of the detector. As part of the Smartpixels project, we have been developing and testing radiation-hard ASICs fabricated using a 28 nm CMOS process with on-chip neural...
Of the many items that need to be considered in a push towards one -picosecond timing for particle detectors, we have focused on one essential component: the distribution of references clock with an inter-channel precision of 100 femtoseconds (fs) or less. Our program has been to develop the tools to measure a reference clock to this level of precision using a digital dual mixer time...
The Yellow Report for the EIC sets the stage for designing detectors that can best meet its science goals, noting the importance of having two complementary detectors and interaction regions. The first detector, ePIC at IP6, is already well into development, while new technologies could be refined for a second detector at IP8. In this talk, I will discuss the proposed research program, which...
A new all-silicon tracking detector known as the Inner Tracker (ITk) will replace the current Inner Detector system of the ATLAS experiment in preparation for the High Luminosity LHC. The outermost layers of the ITk will be tiled with ITk Strip modules, where each module is composed of front-end electronics glued to a silicon microstrip sensor. During module pre-production, a critical problem...
We have produced a general-purpose ultra-low-external interference quantum device holder suitable for various qubit and quantum sensor platforms. It is a continuation of UCB/LBNL's blackbody radiation (BBR) stub filter flange (SFF) study, in collaboration with nine US institutes to obtain the best available techniques in attempt to optimize every aspect possible. In this presentation, we first...
Recent work has shown that ionizing radiation incident on a superconducting qubit chip can cause phonon excitation and trapped charges. The phonons can generate non-equilibrium quasiparticles in the superconductor, which can tunnel across the junction and interact with the qubit energy. Trapped charges change the electric field environment in nearby qubits and are seen as charge noise in...
In the High Energy Physics (HEP) and Nuclear Physics (NP) experiments, there is always a wish to readout all the detector data to improve efficiency and avoid losing potential useful information. This requirement motivates the development of technologies such as the on-detector processing, high speed data links and powerful back-end electronics. The Front-End Link eXchange (FELIX) system is an...
Many neutrino detectors use photons as their primary event detection method, typically through photon counting and determining their arrival times. Photons also carry information about an event through their wavelength, polarization, and direction, but often little to none of this information is utilized. The "dichroicon," a Winston-style light concentrator comprised of dichroic filters,...
The CMS experiment at CERN is adding a new timing detector, the Barrel Timing Layer (BTL), as part of the Phase II upgrade of the detector in preparation for high luminosity running at the LHC. The detector is comprised of more than 160,000 LYSO crystals, each read out at both ends by a Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM). Our group led the development of the BTL SiPMs and their packaging,...
We propose and simulate a novel experiment to quantify the energy stored in stable crystal defects—such as Frenkel pairs—produced by nuclear recoils following neutron capture. These quantum defects can absorb part of the recoil energy, altering the apparent energy scale for nuclear recoils and impacting the interpretation of signals in low-threshold dark matter and coherent elastic...
Future particle detectors will present unprecedented global mechanics challenges in multiple disciplines. For example, FCC detectors are expected to be substantially larger than the current ATLAS and CMS detectors, with structures approximately twice the diameter and two to three times the active area. Furthermore, they will face similarly stringent requirements with other detectors — for...
We present a high-speed, modular Data Acquisition (DAQ) solution developed for Pitt-CoRTEx (Pitt-Cosmic Ray Tracker Experiment), a compact and scalable muon tracking detector designed for educational and small-scale particle physics applications. The detector consists of 128 extruded plastic scintillator bars, each embedded with a wavelength-shifting (WLS) optical fiber that guides light to...
We will present an overview of the proximity-focusing Ring Imaging Cherenkov (pfRICH) detector developed for the ePIC experiment at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). Serving as a key particle identification (PID) subsystem in the backward pseudorapidity region $-3.5 \lesssim \eta \lesssim -1.5$, the pfRICH provides at least 3$\sigma$ PID separation for...
The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) is a next-generation long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment in the US. It will have four liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC) far detector (FD) modules, each holding 17 kilotons of liquid argon. These modules sit 1,500 meters underground and 1,300 kilometers from the near detector complex. The Vertical Drift (VD) FD module, the...
Inference of standard convolutional neural networks (CNNs) on FPGAs often incurs high latency and long initiation intervals due to the nested loops required to slide filters across the full input, especially when the input dimensions are large. However, in some datasets, meaningful signals may occupy only a small fraction of the input, say sometimes just a few percent of the total pixels or...
Next-generation pixel sensors will be sufficiently fine-grained, both in space and time, to determine kinematic properties of a traversing particle by analyzing the resulting charge cluster in a single layer of silicon. Customized machine learning (ML) models based on mixture density networks are capable of extracting track angles and hit positions, as well as uncertainties on these...
In pursuit of a quantum computer, there have been many proposals of qubits that take advantage of quantum systems, from solid-state systems to trapped ions. A particularly promising candidate is the transmon, a qubit based on a superconducting resonator with a Josephson Junction and optimized to have reduced sensitivity to charge noise. It is well-known that these types of qubits suffer from...
Real-time machine learning is emerging as a key tool for next-generation detector systems, where strict latency and hardware constraints require highly efficient models. We present PQuant, a backend-agnostic Python library designed to unify and streamline pruning and quantization techniques for hardware deployment, supporting both PyTorch and TensorFlow. PQuant provides a comprehensive suite...
To date, all light mass dark matter calorimeters have measured a low energy, non-ionizing background whose rate decreases with time since cooldown. Such bursts have recently also been seen to be the dominant source of parity flipping in superconducting QUBITs. In this talk, we will summarize recent work to understand the source of this background where we correlated the measured burst rate to...
Superconducting Nanowire Single Photon Detectors (SNSPDs) are a leading detector technology for single-photon detection with diverse applications, due to their ultra-low energy threshold of below 0.04~eV, low dark counts of 10^-5~Hz, and pico-second level time resolution. Recent advancement in the fabrication of large area superconducting microwire single photon detectors (SMSPDs) make them an...
LArPix is an end-to-end pixelated charge readout system for 3D imaging at the millimeter-scale in multi-tonne liquid argon time-projection chambers (LArTPCs). Leveraging large-scale commercial fabrication techniques, the system is designed to be highly scalable and robust, enabling low-cost quick-turn system production at industry standard. The system is based on the LArPix ASIC, a...
Light readout systems with single-photon resolution are essential for next-generation HEP experiments, including dark matter searches, neutrino detectors, and noble liquid experiments. Technologies such as silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) and photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) offer low noise and scalability, making them well-suited for large-area detector arrays.
This work presents a cryogenic...
We propose a new particle detection scheme that utilizes Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center magnetometry for probing variations in magnetic field exclusion through a superconductor as it undergoes a phase transition. We present exploratory simulation results of a Superconductor-NV center-based detector to probe the Meissner screening for low-energy event detection. A modular Python–COMSOL workflow...
Future long baseline neutrino experiments such as the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) call for the deployment of multiple multi-kiloton scale liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs). Traditional wire-plane technologies present a set of challenges in the construction of the anode planes, the continuous readout of the system required to accomplish the physics goals of proton...
Quantum sensors connected with optical fiber can effectively cover large areas and provide phase coherence between distant experiments by transmitting entangled photons through phase stable links. These sensors have applications in gravitational wave detection and km-long wavelength axion detection. Optical phase stability presents experimental challenges in deployed fibers where vibrations...
We present initial on-sky observation data from superconducting mm-wave filter bank spectrometers on the South Pole Telescope Shirokoff Line Intensity Mapper (SPT-SLIM). The SPT-SLIM experiment is designed to measure redshifted carbon monoxide (CO) line emission from galaxies at 0.5 < z < 2. It was first deployed during the 2024-2025 Antarctic summer for a commissioning and two-week observing...
We present a Berkeley Short-channel IGFET Model (BSIM4)-based cryogenic Process Design Kit (PDK) for the open-source Skywater 130nm transistor node for operation at 77 Kelvin. Reliable operation of read-out electronics at cryogenic temperatures is crucial for their use in liquid argon detectors that are ubiquitous in high energy physics (HEP) experiments. The open-source Skywater 130nm node is...
The SuperCDMS-HVeV (High-Voltage with eV resolution) program is an R&D project focused on developing detectors with low energy resolution to search for low-mass dark matter ( ≲ 1 GeV/c2), study charge-transport in cryogenically-cooled crystals, and probe unclassified backgrounds at low energy. The program utilizes gram-scale silicon detectors instrumented with TES (transition-edge...
