Speaker
Description
The lecture will provide an overview of the main experimental activities of the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics of the Czech Technical University in Prague (IEAP CTU) during nearly 25 years of its existence as the university’s central institution for experimental research in subatomic physics and for the application of its results in engineering and biomedical fields.
The lecture will begin with a brief review of the origins of CTU’s collaboration with CERN, which was initiated under my leadership in 1993, following a mandate from the Rector of CTU, through participation in the ATLAS experiment. Subsequently, this collaboration was expanded through involvement in the CERN RD8, RD19, RD48, and RD50 research programs and, from 1999 onward, in the Medipix2collaboration. Selected research activities carried out in cooperation with CERN, as well as with a number of other international research infrastructures and academic institutions, will be presented.
Particular attention will be devoted to the Institute’s contribution to the design, production, and installation of the massive ATLAS Forward Neutron Shielding, the testing of SCT FWD strip detector modules for the ATLAS Inner Detector, and the principal contributions of IEAP to the development of detector technologies and their applications within the above-mentioned international projects.
A substantial part of the lecture will focus on contribution of the IEAP to development of hybrid pixel detectors within the Medipix2, Medipix3 and Medipix4 collaborations, which have become gradually the basis for a wide range of experimental and applied activities of the institute. The use of Medipix and Timepix detectors for X-ray and neutron imaging, as well as for measurements of composition and spectral characteristics of complex radiation fields, will be discussed. These applications span both extraterrestrial environments and experiments such as ATLAS and MoEDAL at the LHC. Their applications in nuclear physics will also be highlighted, particularly in studies requiring not only precise spatial localization of radiation interactions but also spectroscopy of individual radiation quanta interacting within the detector sensors.
These activities were followed by the deployment of Timepix3 and, more recently, Timepix4 detectors for luminosity measurements and for the tracking and identification of particles produced at the interaction points of LHC experiments. Across all these areas, key milestones in their development will be presented, tracing the path from the earliest proof-of-principle demonstrations to today’s state-of-the-art scientific and technological applications.