Development of charged particle sensor with Nano techonology

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26610060
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Particle/Nuclear/Cosmic ray/Astro physics
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Enari Yuji 東京大学, 素粒子物理国際研究センター, 助教 (60377968)
• Research Collaborator: Kushiya Katsumi ソーラーフロンティア株式会社, 執行役員 ; Watanabe Kentaroh 東京大学, 先端科学技術研究センター, 助教
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 素粒子実験 / 荷電粒子検出 / 先端技術の応用 / ナノテクノロジー / ソーラーセル

Outline of Final Research Achievements

A trial to examine if a thin film solar cell, which is well advanced with nano technology, could detect a charged particle with the Cherenkov light. The solar cell is one of CIGS solar cell developed by Solar Frontier Corporation. The measured quantum efficiency of the cell shows more than 80 % in the wave length range from 400 nm to 1300 nm. The solar cell was irradiated a generated light pulse with LED as like the Cherenkov light (a few hundred photons in a few ns), and measured output waveform. We have observed clear light response with large number of photons. However, it was not possible to detect pulse response on a weak pulse. It turned out the noise suppression of three order magnitude is required, therefore, readout system need to be reconsidered in order to detect the Cherenkov light with the solar cell.
In order to test the solar cell with cosmic rays, a test bench is built with FPGA. The signal from three scintillation counters are digitized and injected into the FPGA.

Free Research Field

素粒子実験