Detector Development

Prof. Dr. Erika Garutti

„The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
― Marcel Proust

In the Detector Laboratory we develop new eyes to enable modern particle physics experiments to discover new physics.

The Higgs discovery would have been impossible without the high-precision ATLAS and CMS detectors. The discovery of dark matter may be impossible without our contribution.  

Our Silicon Lab is  dedicated to develop radiation hard silicon sensors able to withstand the high particle fluxes at LHC and HL-LHC.

As part of the Excellence Cluster Quantum Universe we started development of fast timing detectors (LGAD), their application for test-beam instrumentation and their radiation damage characterization. In this endeavor we participate to the research of the RD50 collaboration.

We are member of the CMS experiment and are currently involved in the design, and realization of the  pixel detector for the phase-II upgrade.

Our group is also strongly involved in characterization of Silicon-PhotoMultipliers (SiPM) and their applications to high-energy physics and medical fields.

We are involved in the detector development for the future linear collider, within the CALICE collaboration, aiming to develop novel calorimeter designs for the application of particle flow techniques. As a spin-off of this activity the group is also active in the medical exploitation of SiPM to Time of Flight Positron Emission Tomography.

Thanks to the support of the Excellence Cluster Quantum Universe, the group is leading member of the MADMAX collaboration, aiming to develop a detector for axion dark matter to be operated in Hamburg in the next decade.