Superconducting tunnel junction (STJ) radiation detectors combine the high energy resolution of low-temperature operation with the high speed of athermal non-equilibrium devices. They utilize the small superconducting energy gap (~1 meV) to achieve an energy resolution of a few eV FWHM for energies below 1 keV. Furthermore, the short signal charge life time (~10s of µs) enables rates of...
Superconducting nanowires are a potential new cryogenic platform for particle detection. These detectors have been used for nearly two decades for single-photon detection, in various experiments having demonstrated photon-detection efficiency of 98%, jitter of < 3 ps, signal count rates of several 100 MHz with dark count rates of < 1 count per day. Recent experiments have demonstrated...
BULLKID is an R&D project on a new supereconducting cryogenic particle detector to search for rare low energy processes such as low-mass dark matter and neutrino coherent scattering off nuclei. The detector unit we are building consists in an array of 60 silicon absorbers sensed by phonon-mediated, microwave-multiplexed Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs), with energy resolution on nuclear...
$\rm{}^{82}Se$ is an interesting candidate for a $0\nu\beta\beta$ search due to its high $Q_{\beta\beta}$ (2998 keV) value, which is above many natural radioactive backgrounds, and relatively long $T^{2\nu}_{0.5}$ ($10^{20}$ yrs). We have proposed a tower of low noise pixelated CMOS detectors with a $200 \, \rm \mu m$ layer of amorphous selenium (a-Se) as a $0\nu\beta\beta$ experiment. The...
The DAMIC (Dark Matter in CCDs) experiment uses scientific grade silicon charge-coupled devices (CCDs) to detect potential ionization signals from dark matter interactions. These approx. mm thick devices feature impressively low leakage current ($<10^{-21}$ A cm$^2$) and a very low energy threshold, making them ideal low-mass dark matter detectors. The kg-size next generation DAMIC-M detector,...
