The IFCA group on EPP instrumentation has two major working lines:
- Research on new silicon radiation detectors and photodetectors. This
is a joint activity with other groups: the radiation detector group of
the National Center of Microelectronics at Barcelona (IMB-CNM). Design
and manufacturing of innovative microstrip silicon sensors (NIR
transparent, thinned, 2D sensitive, vertical electrodes, integrated
pitch adapters, etc) and avalanche photodiodes are within the scope of
this activity; some of these activities are also carried out in
collaboration with the Department of the Semiconductor Detectors of the
Institute of High Energy Physics of the Austrian Academy of Science
(HEPHY-OAW) and the semiconductor laboratory of The European Laboratory
for Particle Physics (CERN).
- Research on Fiber Optic Sensor for EPP experiments. The IFCA group
is introducing in experimental EPP a ground-breaking technology, the FBG
Fiber Optical Sensors for structural and environmental monitoring of
HEP detectors. This is a joint effort with the Department of Composite
Material of Spanish Aerospace Agency (INTA) and the DEPFET group of the
Corpuscular Physics Institute at Valencia (IFIC). An important spin-off
of this line of work is the assessment of this technology impact on the
EMC issues of the final detector systems, task which is jointly
developed with the Technological Institute of Aragon (ITA).
Our work program has been elaborated in such a way that there is a
maximum overlap and synergy with the goals of the stated by the
Elementary Particle Physics Strategy Group appoint by the CERN council
and fostering European projects such as EUDET (R&D for ILC
detectors) and AIDA (R&D for colliders, neutrino and flavor physics.
Our team is a full partner of these two flagship projects. In
addition, in the domain of the Spanish R&D community, an overall
coordination is granted by the Network on Future Colliders. There, we
contributed to the establishment of a long term Spanish R&D roadmap
for reaching a leading role in the design and construction of the vertex
and tracker detectors for the forward part of the future International
Linear Detector (ILD).
