Project list
Collaboration with CERN
sTGC detectors for the ATLAS Experiment at the LHC – CERN
Beneficios
- Accuracy in data capture. It contributes to the reduction from 90 to 30% of the non-relevant information captured in the collisions of the ATLAS Experiment.
Technology validated for its development in only five countries in the world: Chile, Israel, Canada, China and Russia. - Wide range of applications beyond particle physics:
- In mining, for example, it allows the composition of mountains to be determined, identifying cavities and internal structures, specifying the appropriate places to dynamite and reducing the possibility of accidents.
- In medicine, specifically in radiotherapy, it allows the patient’s irradiation plan to be measured in real time, avoiding affecting healthy tissues at a significantly lower cost than the equipment available on the market.
Funcionalidad
The sTGC technology is mainly made up of cathodes and an anode of 50 micron (µm) diameter tungsten wires, forming printed circuits in the form of an electronic card. The assembly of two cathodes and their respective internal structures make up a chamber that is only 5.6 mm thick, with a precision of 40 µm. Finally, a set of four chambers is tested by injecting a gaseous mixture of CO2 and pentane and applying high voltage, which allows an amplification of the ionization produced by the particles that pass through it.
The equipment detects ionizing radiation and is mainly used for muons, due to the penetration capacity and the amount of ionization that these particles generate. Thus, with the possibility of recognizing its traces, its applications are extended to different fields such as research, industry and medicine.
Etapa
Regarding the commitment to CERN, we have fulfilled the commitment assumed by the State of Chile to develop and deliver 33 detector modules for the LHC’s ATLAS Experiment.
DAQ System
Descripción
Development of a fast signal acquisition card for experiments related to particle detection and other applications, with a total of 16 channels for analog signal sampling.
Beneficios
- Versatile system in the acquisition of signals, sending information to a computer in multiple ways, such as USB (UART), TCP and Elink (protocol used at CERN).
- It incorporates a System on Module (SoM) capable of performing signal processing on the same card that can send the pre-processed data.
- Applicable to various signal monitoring and coincidence event detection projects.
Funcionalidad
Among the most important technologies for its development is the Domino Ring Sampler, which corresponds to a capacitive array that stores high-frequency analog signals and maintains them until they are requested to be read at a lower frequency, being suitable for lower-budget acquirers.
Part of the work has included:
- Design and manufacturing prototype card with DRS4 and fast ADC.
- Design and manufacturing “breakout board” DRS4 for firmware development and better understanding of the integrated.
- Fast ADC control firmware development and plugins
- Card design and manufacture with 16 fast channels
Etapa
Currently, the DAQ System is under development of the 16-channel prototype.
Collaboration with Jefferson Lab
Double Target System
Descripción
Electromechanical device, or double target system, designed and manufactured to be used under extreme environmental conditions of high vacuum, high magnetic field, temperature ranges that can range from -272 to 600 °C and ionizing radiation that decomposes matter.
Dónde se implementará
This device will be installed in the Jefferson Lab particle accelerator, specifically in the Clas12 experiment (Hall B), whose objective is to achieve one of the fundamental challenges of particle physics: the quantitative understanding of quarks and gluons in Chromodynamics. Quantum (QCD).
Otras aplicaciones
The development of this device opens up a range of possibilities when it comes to applications in extreme environmental conditions, from mining environments, chemical industry to national and international aerospace and satellite development.
Polarized Target
Descripción
This project consists of improving the target (or fixed target), a solid ammonia (NH3) crystal with channels for liquid helium flow that will be used in the Clas 12 experiment at Jefferson Lab. To achieve this, both experimental and such as simulations using COMSOL, a software that is mainly used for the development of technological solutions and multiphysics modeling in science and engineering, with which problems associated with the field of heat transfer, fluids, particle transport, etc. can be solved. among others.
Beneficios
Ammonia (NH3) targets for polarized target experiments have several advantages, such as high resistance to radiation damage, dilution factor (14-17.6%), and polarization potential (95-99%).
Metodología
The targets are made by solidifying liquid NH3 in the form of small beads with a diameter between 2 and 5 mm. This procedure provides a large heat transfer surface for target cooling. However, this results in a highly stressed and brittle target which, over an experimental time lapse, is reduced to dust due to thermal shock from heat charges and radiation damage.
Thus, a new method was successfully developed for NH3 polarized targets that improve crystal quality as well as its properties, and the target geometry provides a homogeneous and efficient temperature distribution effect.
Otras aplicaciones
Design of cryogenic refrigerators, cryostats and transfer lines: It includes the work and development of thermal machines, design of heat and mass transfer processes that allow the construction of refrigeration systems and devices and equipment with the capacity to preserve cryogenic fluids (helium liquid, liquid nitrogen, among others) and use them to carry out refrigeration processes or experiments.
All the knowledge and skills developed around this project could be applied in various fields, such as microbiology, preservation and treatment of biological samples; aerospace industry, in fuel systems; medicine, in magnetic resonance refrigeration systems; astronomy, in telescope cooling systems; experimental physics, in high energy physics and condensed matter, as well as in topics such as superconductivity and particle accelerators; energy, nuclear fission reactor cooling, energy storage, fusion reactor design.
Power Supply – Power supply with 96 configurable high voltage channels
Descripción
Multichannel power supply for high energy physics experiments.
Características
- 96 high voltage channels independently.
- Outputs from 0 to 96 Volt for each channel.
- Complete PCB/SCH development.
- BuckBoost and SPI technology.
- Friendly user interface with raspberry pi.
- Internal local server.
- Local and remote control remote operation via ethernet.
- Heavy-duty robust mechanical design.
Otras aplicaciones
Física médica, mediciones nucleares, otras.
Four thousand light guides
Descripción
Between 2012 and 2013 CCTVAL manufactured 4,000 light guides for the GlueX Jefferson Lab experiment, whose function is to condense and transmit light to sensors to determine the presence of new particles.
These devices are prisms whose shape is similar to that of a truncated pyramid. They were made with a UVT acrylic material, which among its properties works as a transmitter of ultraviolet rays. What is particular about its design are its angles that allow the reflection of light to bounce off its walls and come out without losing a single beam of light.
Funcionalidad
When a particle enters the calorimeter, it emits light in an amount proportional to the energy of the particle. This light, which must be detected with great precision, is directed towards the sensors by the manufactured guides.
The sensors, which are state-of-the-art silicon photomultipliers, transform it into amplified electronic signals that are later read by the data acquisition system.
Dónde se implementará
These devices were placed in the GlueX subdetector – an electromagnetic calorimeter called BCAL – with the aim of maximizing the number of photons to be detected.
Otras aplicaciones
Ten different models of these pieces were built for the GlueX experiment in eight months of work. Although these pieces are designed for the scientific field, their use in industry is not ruled out.
Characterization of 2800 MPPC
Descripción
The MPPC (Multi Pixel Photon Counter) project, or silicon photomultipliers, was developed between 2010 and 2012 and consisted of the characterization of 2,800 of these photon counter devices, with 16 measurement channels, which They are used to date in the GlueX experiment, within the framework of the collaboration that CCTVal maintains with Jefferson Lab.
The complete characterization of the MPPCs, manufactured by the Hamamatsu company in Japan, involved verifying the state of the product and obtaining operating parameters such as photon detection efficiency, breakdown voltage and gain for different temperatures.
Funcionalidad
One of the most relevant things was that they worked with a technology relatively for that time, of which there were no major references. Subsequently, based on the results of the analyzes of this characterization, several scientific investigations were developed that have been widely cited until now.
Dónde se implementará
These devices were incorporated into the Electromagnetic Calorimeter (BCAL) of the GlueX experiment, whose objective is to understand the fundamental forces within the atomic nucleus, and to detect new particles that are produced when electrons collide with nuclei at high energies.
Other projects
Hodoscope
Descripción
Devices like these exist in different parts of the world, but they are based on the use of photomultiplier tubes (PMT), PIN diodes, and Geiger-Müller tubes (G-M Tube). Our laboratory has a prototype built on the basis of state-of-the-art solid-state detectors: Multi Pixel Photon Counters (MPPC). This technology allows manufacturing a Hodoscope with greater versatility and robustness. The current prototype will serve as the basis for the design of a new Hodoscope. Build a Hodoscope that can be operated by High School students, in order to bring young people closer to the physics of subatomic particles and Develop a data acquisition system that allows the centralization of information from various devices, distributed in different schools.
Preshower Detector
Descripción
Originally, this project consists of the design and construction of a calorimeter, called Preshower, sensitive to the position through which a particle passes and to the energy deposited by it in some of the scintillating crystals of its square array of crystals. Preshower is a multipixel type detector, made up of 625 LYSO crystals, located in a 10 cm x 10 cm matrix, which scintillate when a particle deposits part of its energy in them. The spectrum of emitted light is around 360[nm].
NASA
Descripción
Tras haber trabajado de manera exitosa en proyectos experimentales relacionados a las áreas de física de partículas, análisis de datos, construcción de piezas y desarrollo de softwares. El CCTVal y el Jefferson Lab (JLab) se adjudicaron un fondo concursable de la National Aeronautics and Space Administration, más conocida como NASA, que tiene el fin de implementar un sistema de fusión de información científica de sus mediciones satelitales sobre la Tierra, para el que se debe desarrollar un software de gran escalabilidad que sea capaz de procesar datos satelitales masivos.
ANDES
Descripción
The construction of the Aguas Negras tunnel that will link Chile and Argentina is a great opportunity to have, for the first time in Latin America, a deep underground scientific laboratory where state-of-the-art science is developed. Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site, A.N.D.E.S., stands for scientific integration among Latin American nations. The idea is to establish an underground Laboratory that will attract scientists from all over the world to develop front-line experiments and to establish experimental collaborations in South America. This project represents a great opportunity for the scientific community, since the geographical characteristics of the place are very favorable from the scientific point of view.
