Zecotek Photonics Inc, a developer of leading-edge photonics technologies for medical, industrial and scientific markets, today announced that the COMPASS experiment at CERN has selected the Company’s solid-state MAPD-3N photo detectors, for the multi-purpose experiment in high-energy physics taking place at CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron accelerator located in Switzerland.
The MAPD-3N will be used in the electromagnetic calorimeter. COMPASS and other experiments at CERN are demanding higher energies than ever before and require five key parameters for photo detectors: low cost, high photo-detection efficiency, very high linearity, significant radiation hardness, and a low recovery time. Zecotek’s solid-state MAPD-3N photo detectors meet all of the parameters including an optimum low recovery time, which has been fine tuned to a level commanded by all CERN experiments.
“The MAPD-3N was successfully used by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and will now be used for the main COMPASS calorimeter due to its unique dynamic range and reliable operation,” said Prof. Alexander Olshevskiy, Senior Scientist and Director of Research. “The full size COMPASS calorimeter is being constructed for the next data taking period and will consist of about 2000 towers. With the success achieved by the Large Hadron Collider and other experiments, finding a photo detector that meets all our requirements for future experiments is a very important step.”
“CERN is in its 58th year and the technical challenges put forward over the past few years by CERN engineers and scientists have been progressively growing,” said Dr. A.F. Zerrouk, Chairman, President, and CEO of Zecotek Photonics Inc. “The results of the past few months have forced the main solid-state photo detector developers to go back to the drawing board and design a photo-detector that meets all of CERN’s upgraded requirements. The determination and unique expertise of the Zecotek scientific team plus our intellectual property have permitted Zecotek to meet all the challenges put forth and take the lead in developing a lower cost, solid-state photo detector with high photo-detection efficiency, very high linearity, significant radiation hardness, and an optimum low recovery time.”
CERN experiments have observed a particle consistent with the long sought after Higgs boson, but more work and analysis is necessary to prove the existence of the Standard Model Higgs. The possible sighting of the Higgs boson has created much excitement and intrigue. The popular opinion amongst scientists is that supersymmetry particles and other exotic objects, like the Higgs boson, can only be seen at much higher energies than those currently used by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Zecotek has been working closely with CERN scientists and engineers to meet the new requirements in all major experiments. With CERN closing down the LHC at year’s end for general maintenance, Zecotek is scheduled to deliver the first MAPD-3Ns in the first quarter of 2013.
Zecotek’s proprietary solid-state MAPD-3N photo detector is a design upgrade of the previously announced MAPD. It offers significant performance-cost advantages over competing photomultiplier tubes (PMT) and other solid-state, silicon based photo-detectors. With improved recovery time, unique radiation hardness, photo-detection efficiency and its display of the highest possible linearity, it is a prime component for the improved detector designs required in the next crucial phase of high energy experiments at CERN. Its lower manufacturing cost, excellent timing resolution and Photon Detection Efficiency are also key characteristics for the new configurations of high resolution PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scanners.
The MAPD-3N is supplied to customers through Zecotek Imaging Systems Pte. Ltd., Singapore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Zecotek Photonics Inc., and manufactured under contract by the NNFC; National NanoFab Center, Daejeon City, South Korea.