Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Timing detectors”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Mixed gain detector configurations for time-resolved X-ray solution scattering

X-ray detection at X-ray free-electron lasers is challenging in part due to the XFEL's extremely short and intense X-ray pulses. Experimental measurements are further complicated by the large fluctuations inherent to the self-amplified spontaneous emission process producing the X-rays. At the Linac Coherent Light Source the ePix10ka2M detector offers multiple gain modes, and auto-ranging between these, to increase the dynamic range while retaining low noise. For diffuse scattering techniques, such as time-resolved X-ray solution scattering, where the shape of the scattering pattern largely does not change between exposures, a fixed mix of different gain modes offers many of the same advantages as auto-ranging. We find that configuring individual ASICs in separate gain modes does not impact the intensity linearity of the gain response and has a limited effect on the effective dynamic range in regions with different gain mode settings while avoiding the complexities of auto-ranging. Small (<5%) non-linear gain contributions arise when pixels on the same ASIC are configured in different gain modes. We present a configuration scheme that is designed to select the optimal mixed gain configuration to minimize effects of saturation in the high-/medium-gain region, while maximizing the number of pixels with higher gain to improve the signal-to-noise ratio.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Angular dependent measurement of electron-ion recombination in liquid argon for ionization calorimetry in the ICARUS liquid argon time projection chamber

This paper reports on a measurement of electron-ion recombination in liquid argon in the ICARUS liquid argon time projection chamber (LArTPC). A clear dependence of recombination on the angle of the ionizing particle track relative to the drift electric field is observed. An ellipsoid modified box (EMB) model of recombination describes the data across all measured angles. These measurements are used for the calorimetric energy scale calibration of the ICARUS TPC, which is also presented. The impact of the EMB model is studied on calorimetric particle identification, as well as muon and proton energy measurements. Accounting for the angular dependence in EMB recombination improves the accuracy and precision of these measurements.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2025

Legacy Survey of Space and Time Data Preview 1: visit_detector_table dataset type

The Legacy Survey of Space and Time Data Preview 1 (DP1) is the first release of data from the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory. It consists of raw and calibrated single-epoch images, co-adds, difference images, detection catalogs, and other derived data products. DP1 is based on 1792 science-grade optical/near-infrared exposures acquired over 48 distinct nights by the Rubin Commissioning Camera, LSSTComCam, on the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the Summit Facility on Cerro Pachón, Chile during the first on-sky commissioning campaign in late 2024. DP1 covers a total of approximately 15 sq. deg. over seven roughly equally-sized non-contiguous fields, each independently observed in six broad photometric bands, ugrizy, spanning a range of stellar densities and latitudes and overlapping with external reference datasets. This dataset is a subset of the full data release consisting of the visit_detector_table dataset type. These are per-detector visit metadata. This release contains 1 dataset of this type.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Determining Optimal Running Conditions for TinyTPC Detector

Liquid argon time projection chambers, (LArTPCs), are particle detectors used to collect ionization charge information from particle trajectories, facilitating detailed particle track analysis. They are currently used as particle detectors in major physics projects such as the deep underground neutrino experiment (DUNE), to detect and study the nature of the elusive neutrino particle. TinyTPC is a small scale LArTPC featuring a pixelated readout system (LArPix) that we will use to study liquid argon doping. We expect this doping to enhance the resolution of LAr detectors, especially for low energy particles below 10 MeV which would expand the capabilities of currently running experiments. Housed within a cryostat filled with liquid argon, the TinyTPC will rely on a high and a low voltage system to collect data. In preparation for deployment we found and resolved issues in the HV and LV systems and we determined optimal running conditions in a test vessel. This presentation will go over the detector commissioning process that enabled data taking with the TinyTPC.

Gonzalez, Rebecca↗
DOE OSTI2025

Search for long-lived charged particles using large specific ionisation loss and time of flight in 140 fb −1 of pp collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents a search for massive, charged, long-lived particles with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider using an integrated luminosity of 140 fb −1 of proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV. These particles are expected to move significantly slower than the speed of light. In this paper, two signal regions provide complementary sensitivity. In one region, events are selected with at least one charged-particle track with high transverse momentum, large specific ionisation measured in the pixel detector, and time of flight to the hadronic calorimeter inconsistent with the speed of light. In the other region, events are selected with at least two tracks of opposite charge which both have a high transverse momentum and an anomalously large specific ionisation. The search is sensitive to particles with lifetimes greater than about 3 ns with masses ranging from 200 GeV to 3 TeV. The results are interpreted to set constraints on the supersymmetric pair production of long-lived R-hadrons, charginos and staus, with mass limits extending beyond those from previous searches in broad ranges of lifetime.

beyond Standard Model↗
DOE OSTI2025

Gain characterization of LGAD sensors with beta particles and 28-MeV protons

Low Gain Avalanche Diodes, also known as LGADs, are widely considered for fast-timing applications in high energy physics, nuclear physics, space science, medical imaging, and precision measurements of rare processes. Such devices are silicon-based and feature an intrinsic gain due to a p + -doped layer that allows the production of a controlled avalanche of carriers, with multiplication on the order of 10–100. This technology can provide time resolution on the order of 20–30 ps, and variants of this technology can provide precision tracking too. The characterization of LGAD performance has so far primarily been focused on the interaction of minimum ionizing particles for high energy and nuclear physics applications. This article expands the study of LGAD performance to highly-ionizing particles, such as 28-MeV protons, which are relevant for several future scientific applications, e.g. in biology and medical physics, among others. These studies were performed with a beam of 28-MeV protons from a tandem Van de Graaff accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory and beta particles from a ^90Sr source; these were used to characterize the response and the gain of an LGAD as a function of bias voltage and collected charge. Here, the experimental results are also compared to TCAD simulations.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2026

rustpix

rustpix is a high-performance, open-source Rust library with first-class Python bindings (via PyO3) for processing pixel-detector data in neutron imaging. It targets time-stamping detectors such as Timepix3 (TPX3) at ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source (VENUS beamline), where each detected neutron deposits charge across a cluster of pixels within a very high-rate event stream (96M+ hits/sec). rustpix parses TPX3 event data in parallel using memory-mapped I/O, offers four interchangeable clustering algorithms (ABS adjacency-based search, DBSCAN, graph/union-find connected components, and a parallel grid method), and extracts weighted, super-resolved centroids to produce neutron-event lists. A streaming architecture lets it process files larger than available memory. rustpix is distributed as a pip-installable Python package (with NumPy integration), Rust crates, a command-line tool, and an interactive GUI; it writes HDF5, Apache Arrow, and CSV; and it is designed to extend to TPX4 and other detector types. Released as open-source under the MIT License.

Zhang, Chen [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL),↗
DOE OSTI2025

DUNE Photon Detection System

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) aims to provide a broad physics program primarily addressed to probing CP violation in the neutrino sector and identifying the neutrino mass hierarchy. The search for proton decay, the observation of supernova neutrino bursts, and the investigation of solar neutrinos represent other additional goals of DUNE experiment, which can be enhanced by the use and the high performances of the Photon Detection System (PDS). Using the technology based on liquid argon Time Projection Chamber (LArTPC), the experiment plans to observe neutrino interactions inside detectors located 1300 km away from the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), where the neutrinos are produced. The experiment consists of two main parts, respectively the far and near detectors. The far site will comprise four detector modules. The first module is constituted by a vertical drift single-phase LArTPC, while the second module provides a horizontal drift single-phase LArTPC. The configurations of the other modules are still under definition. Neutrino detection in LArTPCs is achieved by identifying the charge and light generated from its interactions with liquid argon. The wire planes of the instrumented anode and the PDS detect these signals, respectively. The PDS in the first two modules, detailed in the present document, uses a modified version of the so-called ARAPUCA technology, named X-ARAPUCA. This system consisting of a highly reflecting box with an entrance window made by dichroic filters and wavelength shifters, creates a trap to detect the VUV (128 nm) scintillation photons. The X-ARAPUCA of the first module is called Supercell, and it has dimensions of 488×100 mm 2 , while Megacell is the second module version, with an active area of 60×60 cm 2 . This latter configuration also represents a significant technological advancement. Since half of the modules are placed on the cathode at high voltage, they are powered and read out using innovative power-over-fiber (PoF) and signal-over-fiber (SoF) technologies. Meanwhile, the other half are installed in a membrane behind the field cage, with a total transparency of around 70%.

Neutrino detectors↗
DOE OSTI2025

Detector pixel calibration of time-of-flight neutron diffractometers accelerated by machine learning

Modern time-of-flight neutron diffractometers at spallation neutron source are equipped with two dimensional detectors with fine pixelations. The flight path of neutrons from the moderator to the sample and to the detector needs to be precisely calibrated at detector pixel level using standard powders so the diffraction data from all the detector pixels can be correctly time-focused to produce high resolution diffraction peaks. The number of pixels can reach to millions which makes a single-pixel calibration process time-consuming, or even impossible, with conventional fitting routine. Here we presented a machine learning aided calibration process via a “training and predict” process by training machine learning models with the relations between the individual pixel time-of-flight diffraction pattern and fitted diffraction constant. The training models take a portion of the available pixels to predict the diffraction constants precisely and rapidly for massive pixel diffraction patterns.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2026

High-bandwidth frequency domain multiplexed readout of transition-edge sensors for neutrinoless double beta decay searches

The next-generation of cryogenic neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments require increasingly fast readout in order to improve background discrimination. These experiments, operated as cryogenic calorimeters at ∼ 10 mK, are usually read out by high-impedance neutron transmutation doped (NTD) thermistors, which provide good energy resolution, but are limited by ∼ 1 ms response times. Superconducting detectors, such as transition-edge sensors (TESs) with a time resolution of ∼ 100 μs, offer superior timing performance over NTD semiconductor bolometers. To make this technology viable for an application to a thousand or more channels, multiplexed readout is necessary in order to minimize the thermal load and radioactive contamination induced by the readout. Frequency-domain multiplexing readout (fMUX) for TESs, previously developed at Berkeley Lab and McGill University, is currently in use for mm-wave telescopes with detector sampling rates in the order of 100 Hz. We demonstrate a new readout system, based on the McGill/Berkeley digital fMux readout, to satisfy the higher bandwidth and noise requirements of the next generation of TES-instrumented cryogenic calorimeters. Each multiplexing readout module comprises 10 superconducting resonators in the 1–5 MHz range and a DC superconducting quantum interference device (DC-SQUID), interfaced to high-speed field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based electronics for digital signal processing and low-latency SQUID feedback. The new readout samples detectors at 156 kHz, three orders of magnitude faster than its cosmology-oriented predecessor, and demonstrates a stable feedback bandwidth of 3 kHz in a real TES-based system.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Intelligent Experiments through Real-Time AI: Fast Data Processing and Autonomous Detector Control for High-Energy Nuclear Experiments

The aim of this project is to develop software and hardware for fast real-time data processing and autonomous detector control and calibration for the sPHENIX and the future EIC experiments. Below summarizes Georgia Tech team efforts in the past year: 1. We developed a real-time clustering algorithm and FPGA-based pipeline architecture for processing fired pixel data from ALPIDE sensors in sPHENIX experiments. Our Columnar Clustering Co-Design introduces a hardware-aware, stream-friendly approach that segments pixel data by column pairs using a Column Pair Clustering (CPC) strategy, followed by Cluster Stitching to merge adjacent subclusters. Implemented in Vitis HLS, the pipeline comprises five stages—read-in, subclustering, stitching, analysis, and write-out—connected by tagged HLS streams with custom end-of-event signaling for robust synchronization. We designed a pipelined dataflow model optimized for throughput, low latency, and minimal buffering, enabling scalable clustering across events of arbitrary size. Our system maintains spatial precision via center-of-mass and shape key extraction and efficiently handles edge cases such as fragmented or nested clusters. Compared against DBSCAN in both software and hardware, our approach demonstrates competitive performance under FPGA constraints. 2. We also conducted a comprehensive algorithm-to-hardware co-design of connected component analysis tailored for sPHENIX experiments, focusing on real-time, low-latency processing using FPGAs and High-Level Synthesis (HLS). Starting from a Python-based particle tracking pipeline, the team translated the core logic—graph traversal via DFS and Union-Find—into an HLS-compatible C++ model, replacing dynamic memory and recursion with static arrays and pipelined control flow. The final design includes a fully streamed and dataflow-compatible Union-Find kernel optimized across five iterations, incorporating loop pipelining, array partitioning, AXI/FIFO interface tuning, and function flattening. Experimental results show up to 14.8× speedup over the CPU baseline, reducing per-graph latency to 1.58 μs and demonstrating strong resource efficiency with only ~7k LUTs and zero BRAM usage. The design maintains functional correctness against the Python reference using a Python-based C-simulation framework and Mean Squared Error metrics. This work validates the potential of HLS-driven FPGA designs for edge-level HEP data acquisition, laying a scalable foundation for future integration with real-time detector pipelines and multi-graph processing systems.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Reconstruction of cosmic-ray muon events with CUORE

We report the in-situ 3D reconstruction of through-going muons in the CUORE experiment, a cryogenic calorimeter array searching for neutrinoless double beta (0vββ) decay, leveraging the segmentation of the detector. Due to the slow time response of the detector, time-of-flight estimation is not feasible. Therefore, the track reconstruction is performed using a multi-objective optimization algorithm that relies on geometrical information from the detector as a whole. We measure the integral flux of cosmic-ray muons underground at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, and find our value to be in good agreement with other experiments that have performed a similar measurement. To our knowledge, this work represents the first demonstration of 3D particle tracking and reconstruction of through-going muons with per-event angular determination in a millikelvin cryogenic detector array. The analysis performed for this work will be critical for validating the muon-related background in CUPID, a next-generation 0vββ experiment, and for follow-up studies on detector response and on delayed products induced by cosmic-ray muons.

Adams, D. Q. [University of South Carolina]↗
DOE OSTI2025

HRPPD photosensors for RICH detectors with a high resolution timing capability

Recently, a new version of DC-coupled High Rate Picosecond Photodetectors (DC-HRPPDs) substantially re-designed for use at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) has been developed. A first batch of seven “EIC HRPPDs” was manufactured in early 2024. These HRPPDs are DC-coupled photosensors based on Micro-Channel Plates (MCPs) that have an active area of 104 mm by 104 mm, 32 × 32 direct readout pixel array at a pitch of 3.25 mm, peak quantum efficiency in excess of 30%, exceptionally low dark count rates and timing resolution of 15–20 ps for a single photon detection. As such, these photosensors are very well suited for Ring Imaging CHerenkov (RICH) detectors that can additionally provide high resolution timing capability, especially in a configuration where a detected charged particle passes through the sensor window, which produces a localized flash containing a few dozens of Cherenkov photons in it.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Demonstration of event position reconstruction based on diffusion in the NEXT-white detector

Noble element time projection chambers are a leading technology for rare event detection in physics, such as for dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay searches. Time projection chambers typically assign event position in the drift direction using the relative timing of prompt scintillation and delayed charge collection signals, allowing for reconstruction of an absolute position in the drift direction. In this paper, alternate methods for assigning event drift dis tance via quantification of electron diffusion in a pure high pressure xenon gas time projection chamber are explored. Data from the NEXT-White detector demonstrate the ability to achieve good position assignment accuracy for both high and low-energy events. Using point-like energy deposits from 83m Kr calibration electron captures (E ~ 45 keV), the position of origin of low-energy events is determined to 2 cm precision with bias < 1 mm. A convolutional neural network approach is then used to quantify diffusion for longer tracks (E ≥ 1.5 MeV), from radiogenic electrons, yielding a precision of 3 cm on the event barycenter. The precision achieved with these methods indicates the feasibility energy calibrations of better than 1% FWHM at Q ββ in pure xenon, as well as the potential for event fiducialization in large future detectors using an alternate method that does not rely on primary scintillation.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2024

Cosmic Background Rejection of the ICARUS experiment at Fermilab

The Short Baseline Neutrino program at Fermilab aims to explore significant regions of parameter space, applicable to sterile neutrinos at the eV mass scale, as suggested by existing experimental anomalies. To this purpose it exploits Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber detectors located along the Booster Neutrino Beamline to measure both νe appearance and νµ disappearance: the Short Baseline Neutrino Detector and the ICARUS-T600 detector at 110 and 600 m from the neutrino source, respectively. The ICARUS T-600 Far Detector, located at shallow depth, is surrounded by a Cosmic Ray Tagger system to mitigate the cosmic ray background. On average ~ 11 muon tracks are expected to cross the detector during the ~ 1 ms drift time. The cosmic ray tagger is composed of plastic scintillator bars, ensuring near 4π coverage of the detector aiming at tagging cosmic muons and thus reject 𝛾s produced by muon interactions in the surrounding materials that can generate an electromagnetic showers mimicking a νe signal. The system allows one to disentangle cosmic rays from particles originated in a neutrino interaction inside the detector by measuring their position and crossing time. A synchronization of the cosmic ray tagger with the ICARUS photon detection system with a nanosecond accuracy allows one to reject cosmic particles recorded during the beam spill and thus select an enriched sample of neutrino triggered events ahead of the event reconstruction. An overview of the cosmic ray tagger system as well as its role in the neutrino events identification and cosmic background rejection will be presented.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Prospects for measuring the time variation of astrophysical neutrino sources at dark matter detectors

We study the prospects for measuring the time variation of solar and atmospheric neutrino fluxes at future large-scale xenon and argon dark matter detectors. For solar neutrinos, a yearly time variation arises from the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit and, for charged current interactions, from a smaller energy-dependent day-night variation due to flavor regeneration as neutrinos travel through Earth. For a 100-ton xenon detector running for ten years with a xenon-136 fraction of ≲ 0.1 % , in the electron recoil channel a time-variation amplitude of about 0.8% is detectable with a power of 90% and the level of significance of 10%. This is sufficient to detect time variation due to eccentricity, which has amplitude of ∼ 3 % . In the nuclear recoil channel, the detectable amplitude is about 10% under current detector resolution and efficiency conditions, and this generally reduces to about 1% for improved detector resolution and efficiency, the latter of which is sufficient to detect time variation due to eccentricity. Our analysis assumes both known and unknown periods. We provide scalings to determine the sensitivity to an arbitrary time-varying amplitude as a function of detector parameters. Identifying the time variation of the neutrino fluxes will be important for distinguishing neutrinos from dark matter signals and other detector-related backgrounds and extracting properties of neutrinos that can be uniquely studied in dark matter experiments. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Zhuang, Yi (ORCID:0000000277138724)↗
DOE OSTI2026

The FastrSHWFS Project Development Motivation, Analysis, & Test Results

The recent 2020 Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics listed habitable exoplanet imaging with future extreme adaptive optics (AO) on 30m-class telescopes as a key priority in the coming decade. However, there is a current 100x contrast gap between the best systems today and what is needed to enable this goal. Astronomical AO is a required approach to enable ground-based diffraction-limited imaging of exoplanets on future extremely large telescopes. Time lag between the end of an exposure and the application of deformable mirror commands is a major contributor to the error budget in many AO systems, and detector read time is often a large component of this lag. We present two designs for a modified Shack Hartmann wavefront sensor (SHWFS), named Focal plane Actualized Shifted Technique Realized for a SHWFS (fastrSHWFS), to reduce the time lag component. This design steers the spot pattern at the focal plane into a rectangular or linear array with a custom aspect ratio, reducing readout time. The mask with focus yields aberrated results while the mask with tip/tilt only yields some defined spots. This essay outlines the current SHWFS concept, our fastrSHWFS theoretical solution to addressing time lag, reflection and quality analysis of printed mask designs, and results from testing both masks on the High Contrast Testbed at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. This work follows the test of a previous fastrSHWFS design.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Waveform resampling with LMN method

In this article, resampling is a common technique applied in digital signal processing. Based on the Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT), we apply an optimization called here the LMN method to achieve fast and robust re-sampling. In addition to performance comparisons with some other popular methods, we illustrate the effectiveness of this LMN method in a particle physics experiment: re-sampling of waveforms from Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗