Silicon Detector R&D Group

The Silicon Detector R&D group is developing fast, precise and intelligent silicon sensors for applications in Particle Physics and beyond.  The latest generation of detectors has made increasing use of silicon sensors for vertexing, tracking and calorimetry of particles produced in high energy collisions.  The future trend is in a smaller pixel size using integrated approach in which the sensor and electronics are combined in a monolithic silicon device.  Possible thesis projects will involve design and characterization of novel CMOS sensors for particle tracking detectors, simulation of their performance and  sensitivity to physics processes and also development of fast pixel sensors for use in applications beyond Particle Physics.

Precision physics at the future colliders depends on excellent vertexing to identify long-lived particles such as b- and c-quarks.  This will be crucial for the study of a number of important new physics processes, including those predicted by Higgs and Supersymmetric models.  The novel pixel detectors are based on the deep submicron CMOS process INMAPS, developed by RAL.  The process allows to implement considerable intelligence at the pixel level to create sensors with possibility of time stamping, internal memory, amplitude measurement and so on.  The sensors will be thinned to ~50 microns to reduce multiple scattering of passing particles and assembled into ladders which are tested in a test beam to determine the efficiency and position resolution.  The necessary physics studies determine the most desirable vertex detector geometry and explore the physics reach.

Possible applications of the new silicon technologies are wide ranging.  The PImMS (Pixel Imaging Mass Spectrometry) project is developing a fast imaging sensor for use in a next-generation time-of-flight mass spectrometer (TOF-MS) with unique imaging capabilities.  For each mass, the new instrument will image with high precision to complete velocity or spatial distribution of the ions at their point of formation.  This will take mass spectrometry from its current role as a one-dimensional 'weighing' technique into a multi-dimensional world, in which spatial, velocity, and even coincidence information is provided as a function of mass. 

The group is also involved in the LHCb VELO vertex detector and PLUME projects. 

Members of the group:

·        Andrei Nomerotski, group leader

·        Rui Gao, electronics engineer

·        Jaya John John, electronics engineer

·        Rhorry Gauld, graduate student

·        Laura Hill, graduate student

·        Stephanie Yang, mechanical engineer

Ex members

·        Yiming Li, graduate student (2007-2011); now postdoc on LHCb in Tsinghua University, Beijing

·        Yambazi Banda, graduate student (2006-2010); now postdoc in computational biology in University of California, San Francisco

·        Tomas Lastovicka, postdoc (2007-2010); now on ATLAS/CLIC in Czech Academy Physics Institute (Prague)

·        Erik Devetak, graduate student (2005-2009); now postdoc on ATLAS in Stony Brook University, NY

·        Sonja Hillert, postdoc (2003-2008), now in Stockholm ATLAS group

·        Ben Jeffery, graduate student (2005-2009) , job in IT 

·        Brian Hawes, electronics engineer ( -2008), retired

·        Nikhil Kundu, electronics engineer ( - 2008), retired

·        Dave Jackson, departimental lecturer (2004-2007)

MPhys project, Erasmus and summer students

·        Jonathan Yow, Matthew Chalk (2006)

·        Robert Frost, Philip Coulter (2007)

·        Jakub Sikorowski (2008)

·        Elisa Papa, Jakub Sikorowski, Rhorry Gauld (2009)

·        Helena Wilding, David Keiller, Anthony Ashmore (2010)

·        Arthur Lancelyn-Green, Iris Friedli, Robert Pisarczyk (2011)

·        Xavier Coubez (2012)

 

For more information contact Dr Andrei Nomerotski (a.nomerotski@physics.ox.ac.uk).

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Updated 10 March 2012by Andrei Nomerotski