Speaker
Description
Future large neutrino detectors will benefit from scalable scintillation media, fast photosensors, and low power electronics capable of precise timing and high channel density. We present two complementary R&D thrusts under development at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
First, we describe an automated, data driven workflow for the synthesis and characterization of water based liquid scintillators (WbLS). The system varies oil, surfactant, and water content to formulate and optimize WbLS, and has been used to synthesize and evaluate more than one thousand samples. This automated platform reduces optimization time, enables statistically meaningful structure–property correlations, and supports rapid iteration toward application specific WbLS, including formulations with dopants and pulse shape discrimination capabilities.
Second, we report on the initial integration and timing characterization of second generation Large Area Picosecond Photodetectors (LAPPD Gen 2) with commercial multi channel system on a chip waveform digitizers from Nalu Scientific, in particular the 10 GSa/s AARDVARC platform. Using picosecond laser measurements, we demonstrate sub 100 ps level timing performance between LAPPD channels and evaluate cross talk and stability, illustrating the potential of this scalable readout for large area photosensor arrays.
Together, these developments address an emerging need in next generation neutrino detectors: precise, scalable timing readout and tunable scintillation media that can enable discrimination between Cherenkov and scintillation photons in WbLS. While motivated by long baseline and reactor-antineutrino applications, the technologies are broadly applicable to rare event searches and nuclear security–relevant radiation detection.