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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2018

Development of Transition Edge Sensor Detectors Optimized for Single-Photon Spectroscopy in the Optical and Near-Infrared

The search for biosignatures in the atmospheres of exoplanets will be a key focus of future space telescopes that operate in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared bands. Detection of biosignatures requires an instrument with moderate spectral resolving power (R ~ 100) and a large bandwidth (~ 400 nm – ~ 1.8 µm). Additionally, biosignature detection is a photon-starved science; instruments designed for these measurements would ideally combine high optical efficiency with quantum-limited photon detectors (i.e., detectors that exhibit zero dark current). In this work, we report on our efforts to develop energy resolving transition edge sensor (TES)-based detectors designed for biosignature detection. TESs operated as microcalorimeters are compelling detectors for this application. Unlike semiconductor detectors, TESs eliminate the need for dispersive optics and are truly single photon detectors – fundamental TES noise yields uncertainty in the energies of detected photons, not in the number of detected photons. We introduce TESs designed for this application and discuss the path toward realizing a TES-based dispersionless spectrometer optimized for biosignature detection.

Instrumentation and Photography↗
NASA NTRS2020

Development of High-Performance Graphene-HgCdTe Detector Technology for Mid-Wave Infrared Applications

A high-performance graphene-based HgCdTe detector technology is being developed for sensing over the mid-wave infrared (MWIR) band for NASA Earth Science, defense, and commercial applications. This technology involves the integration of graphene into HgCdTe photodetectors that combines the best of both materials and allows for higher MWIR(2-5 m) detection performance compared to photodetectors using only HgCdTe material. The interfacial barrier between the HgCdTe-based absorber and the graphene layer reduces recombination of photogenerated carriers in the detector. The graphene layer also acts as high mobility channel that whisks away carriers before they recombine, further enhancing the detector performance. Likewise, HgCdTe has shown promise for the development of MWIR detectors with improvements in carrier mobility and lifetime. The room temperature operational capability of HgCdTe-based detectors and arrays can help minimize size, weight, power and cost for MWIR sensing applications such as remote sensing and earth observation, e.g., in smaller satellite platforms. The objective of this work is to demonstrate graphene-based HgCdTe room temperature MWIR detectors and arrays through modeling, material development, and device optimization. The primary driver for this technology development is the enablement of a scalable, low cost, low power, and small footprint infrared technology component that offers high performance, while opening doors for new earth observation measurement capabilities.

Sood, Ashok K.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Intra-Pixel Response Characterization of a HgCdTe Near Infrared Detector with a Pronounced Crosshatch Pattern

The “crosshatch” pattern is a recurring “feature” of HgCdTe arrays, specifically the Teledyne HAWAII family of near infrared detectors. It is a fixed pattern of high frequency QE variations along 3 directions generally thought to be related to the crystal structure of HgCdTe. The pattern is evident in detectors used in WFC3/IR, WISE, JWST, and in candidate detectors for Euclid and WFIRST. Using undersampled point sources projected onto a HAWAII-2RG detector, we show that the pattern induces photometric variations that are not removed by a flat-field calibration, thus demonstrating that the QE variations occur on scales smaller than the 18 micron pixels. Our testbed is the Precision Projector Laboratory’s astronomical scene generator, which can rapidly characterize the full detector by scanning thousands of undersampled spots. If not properly calibrated, detectors showing strong crosshatch may induce correlated errors in photometry, astrometry, spectroscopy, and shape measurements.

Smith, Roger↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Modeling and Optimizing Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors for the EXCLAIM Mission

Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are highly scalable detectors that have demonstrated background-limited sensitivity in space-like infrared environments. The detectors have a rich design space with many optimizable parameters, allowing high sensitivity measurements over a wide dynamic range. For these reasons, MKIDs are the chosen detectors for the Experiment for Cryogenic Large-Aperture Intensity Mapping (EXCLAIM), a balloon-based telescope targeting nearly background-limited performance from 420- 540 GHz. We present an update on the design and measurements of the EXCLAIM MKID-spectrometer system, with a particular focus on microwave-induced pair-breaking and TLS noise. We have performed dark tests using a test detector, accurately describing the data through an MKID model mainly following existing literature with slight variations in TLS-fitting. We also review the overall architecture of the EXCLAIM detectors-spectrometer system, including an R=512 𝜇-Spec integrated spectrometer. This MKID-spectrometer system not only enables EXCLAIM with groundbreaking sensitivities to the astrophysical signal, but it also provides a critical pathfinder for future far-IR telescopes that may benefit from these technologies.

Trevor Mackintosh Oxholm↗
DOE OSTI2017

Tracking Detector Performance and Data Quality in the NOvA Experiment

NOvA is a long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment. It uses the NuMI beam from Fermilab and two sampling calorimeter detectors located off-axis from the beam. The NOvA experiment measures the rate of electron-neutrino appearance in the almost pure muon-neutrino NuMI beam, with the data measured at the Near Detector being used to accurately determine the expected rate at the Far Detector. It is very important to have automated and accurate monitoring of the data recorded by the detectors so any hardware, DAQ or beam issues arising in the 344k (20k) channels of the Far (Near) detector which could affect the quality of the data taking are determined. This paper will cover the techniques and detector monitoring systems in various stages of data taking.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Wellbore detector with azimuthal and spectral energy resolution

A wellbore inspection device includes a radiation generation source operable to emit neutrons, and a radiation detector fixed relative to the radiation generation source and operable to detect backscattered neutron radiation from a surrounding environment. The radiation detector includes a plurality of individually addressable detector elements arranged in one or more concentric rings. Respective amounts of backscattered neutron radiation detected by the individually addressable detector elements within a ring is indicative of the azimuthal direction of the detected backscattered neutron radiation, and the respective amount of backscattered neutron radiation detected by the individually addressable detector elements of two or more concentric rings is indicative of an energy level of the backscattered neutron radiation. The inspection device determines whether a potential anomaly is present in or around the wellbore, based at least in part on the respective amounts of backscattered radiation detected by the individually addressable detector elements.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

Comparison of Simulated and Experimentally Measured Detector Impulse Responses to Pulsed X-rays

The Gamma Array Simulation Toolkit (GAST) is a multi-physics software stack comprised of Geant4, MATLAB, and experimentally measured photomultiplier tube (PMT) impulse response waveforms that is used to model and inform the end-to-end performance of radiation detector systems. In order to validate the ability of GAST to predict the impulse response of a modeled detector configuration operated in current mode, experimental measurements using the Nevada National Security Site Transformational Diagnostics and Imaging 2 MeV endpoint energy electron linear accelerator (linac) with a tungsten target were performed. Seven different detector configurations consisting of unique combinations of scintillator material, size, reflectivity conditions, presence or absence of light guide, and PMT were evaluated. The resultant impulse response of each detector configuration was recorded and compared to a GAST simulation that emulated the respective linac experiment conditions. The comparison of the experimental and simulated detector impulse responses indicated that GAST can reliably predict detector impulse responses.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

Developing Low Noise, Rad-hard Detectors for Parity Violating Experiments

As parity-violating electron scattering (PVeS) experiments continue to push the frontiers of precision electro-weak asymmetry measurements, the demands on the experimental techniques and apparatus are also pushed. In particular, the need for higher resolution and radiation-hardness of the main integrating detectors has increased over the successive generations of PVeS experiments. The demand for precise measurement of GHz event rates has pushed the field toward the use of thin quartz Cerenkov light based detectors. We have been designing and testing such thin quartz detectors specifically for the upcoming experiments at Jefferson Lab, PREX-II and CREX, but this work also greatly influences the detector development for several future experiments including MOLLER at Jefferson Lab. These are all PVeS experiments that will use the new thin quartz Cerenkov detector design concept for their main asymmetry measurements (as well as for beam monitoring). The new design concept gives not only significant performance improvements compared to its predecessor from PREX-I, but also we have now thoroughly characterized its operational design and performance using a combination of test-beam data and detailed particle and optical Monte Carlo Geant4 simulations. These activities have culminated in the development and implementation of a "bench-marked" Monte Carlo package, QSIM, which constitutes a powerful design tool for present and future PVeS quartz detectors. The benchmarked simulation can replicate real photoelectron distributions (RMS and Mean) from testbeam data with ~5% precision – limited mainly by the systematic uncertainty of the PMT gain measurements.

Villarreal, Carlos Bula Villarreal↗
DOE OSTI2021

Mutli-layered neutron detector

A neutron detector including a plurality of layers of converter material and a plurality of layers of detector material. Each layer of converter material can be immediately adjacent to at least one layer of detector material and each layer of detector material can be immediately adjacent to at least one layer of converter material. The neutron detector may further include a read out integrated circuit (ROIC) that is electrically coupled to the plurality of layers of detector material. A value output by the ROIC may be indicative of a neutron interacting with a layer of converter material from amongst the plurality of layers of converter material.

Rice, William Charles↗
DOE OSTI2022

Snowmass Instrumentation Frontier IF08 Topical Group Report: Noble Element Detectors

Particle detectors making use of noble elements in gaseous, liquid, or solid phases are prevalent in neutrino and dark matter experiments and are also used to a lesser extent in collider-based particle physics experiments. These experiments take advantage of both the very large, ultra-pure target volumes achievable and the multiple observable signal pathways possible in noble-element based particle detectors. As these experiments seek to increase their sensitivity, novel and improved technologies will be needed to enhance the precision of their measurements and to broaden the reach of their physics programs. The areas of R&D in noble element instrumentation that have been identified by the HEP community in the Snowmass process are highlighted by five key messages: IF08-1) Enhance and combine existing modalities (scintillation and electron drift) to increase signal-to-noise and reconstruction fidelity; IF08-2) Develop new modalities for signal detection in noble elements, including methods based on ion drift, metastable fluids, solid-phase detectors and dissolved targets. Collaborative and blue-sky R&D should also be supported to enable advances in this area; IF08-3) Improve the understanding of detector microphysics and calibrate detector response in new signal regimes; IF08-4) Address challenges in scaling technologies, including material purification, background mitigation, large-area readout, and magnetization; and IF08-5) Train the next generation of researchers, using fast-turnaround instrumentation projects to provide the design-through-result training no longer possible in very-large-scale experiments. This topical group report identifies and documents recent developments and future needs for noble element detector technologies. In addition, we highlight the opportunity that this area of research provides for continued training of the next generation of scientists.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2022

A New Search for Low-mass Dark Matter and an Examination and Reduction of the Uncertainty due to the Photoelectric Absorption Cross Section using a Cryogenic Silicon Detector with Single-charge Sensitivity

Many astrophysical observations point to the abundant existence of dark matter (DM) in the universe composed of particles beyond the Standard Model. However despite numerous experiments using different techniques, DM particles have yet to be directly observed. The Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS) SNOLAB experiment will employ silicon and germanium crystal detectors operated at temperatures as low as 15~mK to probe DM interactions using phonon and ionization signals. Recently, R\&D; facilities have developed gram-sized high-voltage eV-scale (HVeV) silicon detectors that achieve single-electron-hole-pair resolution. By probing effective DM-electron interactions, these devices can be used for searches of low-mass DM candidates.This dissertation presents a DM search experiment known as HVeV Run~2 that employs a second-generation HVeV detector operated in an above-ground laboratory at Northwestern University (IL, USA). Energy spectra are obtained from a blind analysis with 0.39 and 1.2\,g-days of exposure with the detector biased at 60 and 100\,V, respectively. The 0.93~gram detector achieves a 3\,eV phonon energy resolution, corresponding to a world-leading charge resolution of 3\,\% of a single electron-hole pair for a detector bias of 100\,V. With charge carrier trapping and impact ionization effects incorporated into the DM signal models, the resulting exclusion limits are reported for inelastic DM-electron scattering for DM masses from 0.5--$10^{4}$\,MeV$/c^{2}$; in the mass range from 1.2--50\,eV$/c^{2}$ the limits for dark photon and axion-like particle absorption are reported.Several DM search experiments, including HVeV Run~2, are sensitive to low-mass DM candidates that rely on the temperature-dependent photoelectric absorption cross section of silicon. However discrepancies in the underlying literature data result in dominating systematic uncertainties on the DM exclusion limits. In order to reduce these systematic uncertainties, this dissertation presents a novel method of making a direct, low-temperature measurement of the photoelectric absorption cross section of silicon at energies near the band gap (1.2--2.8\,eV).

Wilson, Matthew James↗
DOE OSTI2023

A 4 x 4 SiPM Sensor Array with Fast Preamplified Output Engineered for the PWO Detectors of the EIC EEEMCAL

The PbWO4 scintillation detectors for the Electron-Ion Collider Electron Endcap Electromagnetic Calorimeter (EEEMCAL) cannot use vacuum photomultipler tubes due to the high magnetic field environment. We are presenting a readout solution with a 4 x 4 SiPM array directly coupled to a preamplification and summing stage. A second amplification stage with variable gain and offset adjustments is also included in the compact electronics module. The integrated power supply feeds the signal processing chain and the adjustable bias control. The parameter settings are saved locally on a EEPROM and are adjustable via the integrated communication interface through USB or RS485. The design was optimized to maximize signal collection energy resolution, for fast timing and wide dynamic range while keeping a small footprint with low power consumption and heat dissipation. The output response is fast enough to meet the 100 ? 200 ns digitization gate requirements for the detector. The electronics assembly requires no active cooling and includes a temperature sensor and a gain compensation of thermal variations which are important features for stable operation in large scale detector structures. A detector prototype was constructed with 20 mm x 20 mm x 200 mm PWO crystals affixed with individual SiPM array readouts and arranged in a 3 x 3 array. This detector was tested at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility with 5GeV positrons. We will present the results of these detector characterization measurements.

Philip, O.↗
DOE OSTI2014

Identification of Leakage Spectra from Neutron Activation in Glass/Cherenkov Detectors - Paper 96

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has developed a new detector system concept that can be deployed in major US cities to identify the leakage spectrum of a nuclear weapon detonation. The detector is based on a small piece of glass that has been doped with an element that has a high activation cross section and creates a radioactive activation product with a reasonable length half-life. The decay of the activation product(s) after exposure creates Cherenkov light which can propagate to a photomultiplier and can be turned into a count-rate signal. The signal from each glass in each detector in a city can be individually analyzed to determine the amount of activation products produced in the initial exposure. Several activation products can be determined in a single glass if the half-lives are not the same. With a known source location and a detailed 3D model of a city, neutron transport simulations can be made by using a library of known sources to predict the activation amounts each source would have made in the glass detectors. A simple comparison of the measured activation amounts and the predicted activation amounts can identify the source spectrum contained in the library that is the best match. Choosing dopants with a large range in the threshold energy for the activation reactions can help to differentiate the spectra in the library. The method of matching the measured activation amounts to the predicted activation amounts to identify the source spectrum is similar to the analysis used for the passive Activation Foil Integrated Detector System (AFIDS), also developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In AFIDS, wires or foils of known mass and isotopic composition are deployed before and then collected after exposure. Counting gammas in a nearby laboratory determines the activation amounts. The glass/Cherenkov system is active - it uses a battery-powered detector to count flashes of Cherenkov light and to communicate its count rates to a remote location for further analysis. Work has been performed in several areas, including glass making, automated detection and communication systems and software tools for analysis of the signal and source spectrum identification. Bell and Boatner have developed phosphate glasses that incorporate elements with high capture cross sections, and Hayward has simulated the response with Geant4 and measured the response with isotopic gamma sources. This paper will focus on the software tools for determining the activation amounts from the Cherenkov count-rate signal and finding the best matching source spectrum. A test problem in an urban environment is used to demonstrate the potential of a spectrum identification system using neutron activation. The analysis methods developed to identify the neutron leakage spectra from Cherenkov light given off by neutron activation in doped glasses work well. The calculation used to unfold the count-rate information into the number of actual activation products uses robust algorithms that can also compute associated uncertainties. These uncertainties and the known uncertainties of the glass tube material compositions are incorporated into the matching analysis to determine which of the source spectra in the library best matches the measured activation data. Any measurement method used to identify a neutron source spectrum relies at some point on a comparison against known sources; no identification method is definitive. Detection systems measure some physical aspect of the source, not its serial number. Many systems measure the physical aspect to determine that the source has some property, and then leave it to experts to determine which potential sources share that property. The analysis system presented here incorporates the comparison into the analysis itself. The statistical tests show which of the known library sources match the measured data the best and whether that match is a good match. If the best match still does not fit the measured data well (a very high χ{sup 2} value), that indicates the true source is not one of the sources in the library. This is still valuable information for decision makers. (authors)

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2014

Efficiency Calibration of 4{pi} NaI(Tl) Gamma-ray Detectors for Plane Sources - Paper 130

4{pi} NaI(Tl) detectors are useful for low level gamma activity measurements due to the near 4{pi} solid angle that can be obtained with them. An analytical theoretical approach is presented here to calculate the absolute efficiencies for this type of detectors. The approach depends on the accurate calculation of two important factors; the path length, d, the photon traverses within the active volume of a gamma detector, and the geometrical solid angle,{Omega}, subtended by the source to the detector at the point of entrance. These two factors are theoretically derived through a straightforward analytical approach. In this work, this model is extended to an isotropic radiating point source, and a thin circular disk source. The results of the present absolute efficiency values were compared with the experimental and M.C. method works reported in the literature. The present theoretical and the experimental efficiency values are in good agreement. The present approach offers a good method to calibrate 4{pi} NaI(Tl) detectors over a large energy range without the need for standard sources, as is the case for experimental methods, nor optimization of detector parameters as for Monte Carlo simulations. Discrepancies with experimental results are reduced to lower than 4%. (author)

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2025

MAIA: A new detector concept for a 10 TeV muon collider

Muon colliders offer a compelling opportunity to explore the TeV scale and conduct precision tests of the Standard Model, all within a relatively compact geographical footprint. This paper introduces a new detector concept, MAIA (Muon Accelerator Instrumented Apparatus), optimized for $\sqrt{s}=10$ TeV $\mu\mu$ collisions. The detector features an all-silicon tracker immersed in a 5T solenoid field. High-granularity silicon-tungsten and iron-scintillator calorimeters surrounding the solenoid capture high-energy electronic and hadronic showers, respectively, and support particle-flow reconstruction. The outermost subsystem comprises an air-gap muon spectrometer, which enables standalone track reconstruction for high-momentum muons. The performance of the MAIA detector is evaluated in terms of differential particle reconstruction efficiencies and resolutions. Beam-induced background (BIB) simulations generated in FLUKA are overlaid with single particle gun samples to assess detector reconstruction capabilities under realistic experimental conditions. Even with BIB, reconstruction efficiencies exceed 95% for energetic tracks, photons, and neutrons in the central region of the detector. This paper outlines promising avenues of future work, including forward region optimization and opportunities for enhanced flavor/boosted object tagging, and addresses the technological assumptions needed to achieve the desired detector performance.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2019

Development of a ZnS (Ag)-Silicon Photomultiplier Fast Neutron Detector for the Fast Neutron Hodoscope at TREAT

The Transient Reactor Test (TREAT) Facility at Idaho National Laboratory is being restored to support the mission of advanced reactor and fuel development in the United States. A key part of this restoration is the fast neutron hodoscope which images the fuel under test during extreme transient conditions. Traditionally, this has been comprised of ZnS (Ag)-based proton recoil scintillators (PRS) coupled to photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), but silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) have emerged as a promising candidate to replace PMTs in this application. This work develops, tests, and evaluates a SiPM-based PRS detector for incorporation into the updated Fuel Motion Monitoring System (FMMS) at TREAT. The primary characteristic to be optimized is the gamma rejection efficiency of the detector which will be done using pulse shape discrimination (PSD). To do so multiple types of SiPMs will be tested with multiple PRS buttons and compared using standard PSD figures of merit. Consideration to count rates will also be given and consequently to the detector’s electrical time constants. Once the ideal SiPM has been selected for the PRS detectors, its gamma rejection efficiency will be characterized, and benchmarked to the traditional PMT-PRS detectors. PSD performance for this detector will also be characterized as a function of temperature.

46 - INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AN↗
DOE OSTI2022

Characterization of Multianode Photomultiplier Tubes for use in the CLAS12 RICH detector

In this work, we present results of the detailed study of several hundred Hamamatsu H12700 Multianode Photomultiplier Tubes (MaPMTs), characterizing their response to the Cherenkov light photons in the second Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector, a part of the CLAS12 upgrade at Jefferson Lab. The total number of pixels studied was 25536. The single photoelectron spectra were measured for each pixel at different high voltages and light intensities of the laser test setup. Using the same dedicated front-end electronics as in the first RICH detector, the setup allowed us to characterize each pixel’s properties such as gain, quantum efficiency, signal crosstalk between neighboring pixels, and determine the signal threshold values to optimize their efficiency to detect Cherenkov photons. A recently published state-of-the-art mathematical model, describing photon detector response functions measured in low light conditions, was extended to include the description of the crosstalk contributions to the spectra. The database of extracted parameters will be used for the final selection of the MaPMTs, their arrangement in the new RICH detector, and the optimization of the operational settings of the front-end electronics. The results show that the characteristics of the H12700 MaPMTs satisfy our requirements for the position-sensitive single photoelectron detectors.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2022

Low-threshold sapphire detector for rare event searches

Low mass nuclear recoil dark matter and coherent-elastic-neutrino-nucleus-scattering (CE$v$NS) searches confront similar challenges in choosing ultra-low threshold and large-mass detectors. Here, we report experimental results from a 100 g single-crystal sapphire detector design with a diameter of 76 mm and thickness of 4 mm instrumented with transition edge sensors (TES). Sapphire is a crystal of aluminum oxide (Al 2 O) and has been found to be a good candidate for light mass dark matter search experiments due to its lower atomic mass compared to other detector materials such as germanium and silicon. This new phonon-assisted sapphire detector was characterized to yield a baseline recoil energy resolution of 28.4 ± 0.4 eV. The detector is designed to be sensitive to low-energy rare interactions with an intention to investigate the low-mass region of dark matter phase-space and search for CE$v$NS at the reactor site.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗