Detector Physics

About this programme

Pictures of three types of detectors. Left: the bottom PMT array in the Xenon Dark Matter detector in Gran Sasso. Middle: a resistive anode encoder at the DESIREE facility in Stockholm. Right: ATLAS liquid argon electromagnetic calorimeter and scintillating hadronic calorimeter at CERN. This course reviews the basic interactions of radiation, particles, and ions with matter and how these are exploited to design detectors and sensors to detect photons, neutrons, low energy ions as well as high energy particles. These include photo-electric effect, Compton scattering, pair production, excitation, ionization, bremsstrahlung, Cherenkov radiation, transtion radiation, nuclear reactions, secondary emission, particle showers. A wide range of modern detectors used in research and industry are looked at in details: charged-particle detectors, semiconductor detectors including CCD and CMOS sensors, gas detectors, scintillation detectors, proportional chambers, calorimeter, Cherenkov detectors, bolometric detectors. You will be introduced to the detection systems based on such detectors and their applications in molecular, atomic, nuclear, particle physics, quantum optics as well as in medicine, accelerator physics and other fields. This is a second cycle course given at half speed during daytime. This course can also be taken as a third cycle course. The teaching and learning activities are lectures, problem solving classes, an independent literature study project, and laboratory exercises. The examination consists of an oral exam, a seminar presentation, and written reports o