EPSCoR Research Fellows: NSF: Pushing the frontiers of silicon detectors with low-gain avalanche diodes

This Research Infrastructure Improvement (RII) EPSCoR Research Fellows project provides a fellowship to an assistant professor and training for a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University. This work is conducted in collaboration with Brookhaven National Laboratory. Through the fellowship, the PI will develop new capabilities for incorporating timing information into reconstruction for silicon sensors. This project will test commercially available readout and digitization strategies for silicon sensors with picosecond timing resolution, and develop advanced machine learning signal reconstruction algorithms for readout chips in the context of high energy physics research. This work will accelerate other applications of these sensors to work in fields such as medical physics and astrophysics. The goal of this project is to test digitization strategies for the fast-timing capabilities of capacitively coupled low-gain avalanche diodes using the AARDVARC v3 front-end chip, which captures and digitizes the full waveform at a high sampling rate. This project will benchmark the timing and spatial resolution of these boards and identify key areas for further development of the chip. These studies will be performed through tests with a laser system, radioactive source, and test beam studies. These tests will be used as inputs to machine learning reconstruction algorithms. This will provide faculty and postdoctoral professional advancement in core silicon detector research, resulting in new test stations being built at Brown University. These activities will integrate with existing undergraduate research programs at Brown University to provide student training in silicon detectors, and will also provide new opportunities for high school students to participate in high energy physics programs, in collaboration with local high schools. This project is supported by the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: EPSCoR Research Fellows (ERF). The ERF program supports early- and mid-career investigators in eligible jurisdictions to develop collaborations at the nation’s private, government or academic research institutions. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.