| Aug 06, 2013 |
Large Area Picosecond Photodetectors push timing envelope
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(Nanowerk News) The Large Area Picosecond Photodetector (LAPPD) collaboration has developed big detectors that push the timing envelope, measuring the speed of particles with a precision down to trillionths of a second.
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As described in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments ("A test-facility for large-area microchannel plate detector assemblies using a pulsed sub-picosecond laser"), which is produced by the AIP Publishing, a team of researchers within the LAPPD collaboration developed an advanced facility for testing large area photodetectors -- with a level of spatial precision measured in micrometers and time resolutions at or below a picosecond.
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"Innovation in science often comes from advances in instrumentation," said Matthew Wetstein, a Grainger Fellow at the University of Chicago's Enrico Fermi Institute who was a co-author on the study. "It can come in the form of a completely new capability or be as simple as making existing instrumentation affordable and accessible for many different types of experiments.
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In many areas of particle physics, detectors have seen steady improvements in resolution, but timing is an envelope that deserved a push, he added.
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"We're designing detectors that are the fastest ever built for their spatial granularity, size, and cost," Wetstein said. "Our goal is to put a very powerful tool into the hands of the scientific community."
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A central aspect of the project is a technique known as Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), the authors reported in their paper. Beyond the realm of high-energy physics, potential applications for the photodetector range from basic X-ray physics to medical imaging to large-area X-ray detection for homeland security.
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