RNDr. Jaroslav Zálešák, Ph.D.
A group of engineers, technicians and scientists within Department 33 whose common feature is to work on projects where knowledge of electronics, the ability to design electronic systems, their control and use in measurements is required in projects supported within the large scientific infrastructures of Fermilab (DUNE. NOvA) and CERN (Atlas, CALICE).
In our laboratory, the group is involved in research and testing of photosensors within the Photodetection Consortium for building detectors for neutrino experiments. We work with silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) or so-called multipixel photon counters (MPPC) - semiconductor avalanche silicon sensors capable of detecting single photons. The detection of single photon quanta, together with the mitigation of environmental background noise, will allow us to adapt advanced visual imaging and deep learning data processing methods to register such rare particles as neutrinos originating from dark matter or supernova explosions. The way to achieve such conditions is to place our silicon detectors at very low temperatures, such as those found in liquid gases (N, Ar, Xe). Since SIPM manufacturers generally do not guarantee their functionality in cryogenic environments, many features must be tested in the laboratory.
Another approach is to use SiPMs with scintillation materials at room temperatures to help real-time monitoring and control systems maintain stable conditions, as we plan to do for the proposed detectors for future linear accelerators. For these approaches, we are developing electronic parts and data acquisition systems with very high utilization of programmable FPGAs that will be customized to our needs.