Undergraduate Student Research Projects, with the Syracuse University High Energy Physics Group

Jeffrey Wiseman   (Syracuse University) Jeffrey is working on silicon detector R&D during the Summer of 2008.  He is continuing the work started by Carl Goodrich, using a silicon chip probe station to characterize several types of pixel sensors (see below).  These sensors are a part of the RD50 Project at CERN. Jeffrey is busy making a series of measurements of the current-voltage (CV) characteristic for these sensors.  This curve gives an indication of the voltage at which the sensor has full charge collection efficiency (charge is deposited by the passing particles produced in the collision).  Depending on the results, it will be shown if any of them are suitable for use in an upgrade to the VELO Silicon Vertex Detector, a major part of the LHCB Experiment.  His final report for this work is coming soon.  He works in our lab under the supervision of Marina Artuso and Gwen Lefeuvre. Jeffrey is a Sophomore Physics major at Syracuse University.   Carl Goodrich   (Syracuse University) Carl worked on analysis of beam test data for the VELO Silicon Vertex Detector of the LHCB Experiment at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics Research) during the the Summer of 2007.  After that, he worked on silicon detector R&D during the 2007-2008 Academic Year.  He used a silicon chip probe station to characterize the IV curve for several types of pixel sensor geometries, some of which were irradiated in order to test the capability of the device to perform sufficiently well after years in the harsh radiation environment of a modern particle accelerator like the LHC.   Carl got a lot of hands-on experience in both analysis techniques and in working with silicon pixel sensors.  He learned the sophisticated software used for analysis and even wrote some of his own.  He did important studies based on beam test data taken in 2006 that demonstrated the stability of operation of the VELO detector.  His work was presented at an LHCb collaboration meeting.  Carl also did an interesting series of systematic studies of pixel sensors, measuring the current-voltage (IV) characteristic.  You can look at his final report for this sensor work.  He worked in our lab under the supervision of Marina Artuso and Gwen Lefeuvre.  Carl will be a Senior with a multiple major in Physics, Engineering Physics, and Math at Syracuse.   Jeremy Chapman   (Syracuse University) Jeremy worked on silicon detector R&D in the Summer of 2006 and into the following academic year.  He set up a station to make electronic tests of new silicon pixel sensors.  These are new detector architectures that may be used as an upgrade of the VELO Silicon Vertex Detector, a major part of the LHCB Experiment at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics Research), and are based on previous work on the FPIX0 chip, done for the BTEV Pixel Detector.  He studied their response to various pulse levels and their fast timing properties.   Jeremy got some hands-on experience in working with forefront silicon pixel designs.  He rather quickly installed Visual C++ and integrated it with the pixel readout electronics.  This is the kind of understanding that you can not get from a course, but only can get from careful tests over a longer period of time.  If you are interested in asking him about his research experience, you can email him.  He worked in our lab under the supervision of Marina Artuso. Jeremy graduated from Syracuse University, with a dual major in Physics and Computer Engineering, and EE minor.  He was named a University Scholar for the Class of 2007, the highest undergraduate academic honor bestowed by the University.      Chris McDonald   (Syracuse University) Chris worked on detector R&D during the Fall of 2005 and Spring of 2006.  He constructed and tested seven scintillation trigger counters, to be used in a beam test of the VELO Silicon Vertex Detector of the LHCB Experiment at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics Research) in the Summer of 2006.  He studied the basic behavior of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) and plastic scintillator material, using a PMT test station with a multi-channel analyzer, as shown in the photograph.  In particular, he measured the pulse-height spectrum and the signal-to-noise ratio for these devices.   Chris got a lot of experience in designing, constructing and testing these photon detectors.  He made all the pieces needed for the counters--some of which were tricky, like the optical lightguides which were made of a special UV-transmitting acrylic and needed to be hand-polished to optical quality.  This took a lot of effort!  He finished them by epoxying and wrapping the counters so that they would be light-tight and could work in a laboratory environment.  The counters were used very successfully in the beam test at CERN.  For more info, you can see the poster that Chris made on this this work, which he presented at SU's Mayfest 2006.  He worked in our lab under the supervision of Ray Mountain and Sheldon Stone. Chris graduated from the SU Physics Program, and went on to get his Master's Degree in Astronautical Engineering at the University of Southern California.     Anthony White   (Syracuse University) Anthony worked on electronics R&D during the Spring of 2006.  He begun work on a test station to characterize new pixel detectors, which may be use in an upgrade of the VELO Silicon Vertex Detector, a major part of the LHCB Experiment at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics Research).   He learned about electronic readout and computer interfaces.  For extra fun, he also helped Chris McDonald with the construction of the trigger counters (see above).   Anthony continued his undergraduate studies at Syracuse University.   Nate Kuslis   (Syracuse University) Nate worked on a silicon detector R&D during the Fall of 2005.  He worked on setting up a Infrared Laser Test Station which will be used to measure the response of silicon pixel sensors to pulses of IR photons (this mimics ionization energy deposition by charged particles produced in high-energy collisions).  The pixel sensors to be used are part of an effort to upgrade the VELO Silicon Vertex Detector, of the LHCB Experiment at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics Research).   Nate learned some things about mechanical work, as he needed to fix the 2-D motion control stage that moves the silicon wafer around under the laser beam.  He also got some computing experience, programming the controller for this stage and interfacing it with a LabVIEW-based PC.   Nate continued his studies in the Department of Physics at Syracuse University.   Levon Vogelsang   (Syracuse University) Levon worked on electronics R&D during the Summer of 2005.  He worked on the high-sensitivity readout electronics for MAPMT photon detectors, originally designed for the RICH Detector of the BTEV Experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.  He studied the factors that influence the performance of this new readout, including the changes in the timing and gain properties of the analog component induced by changes in bias currents and voltages, as well as the factors that produce a maximum linearity range for the discriminator response. Levon got practical experience using the kind of electronics he studied in his undergraduate Modern Instrumentation Course.  You can read about his work in his Summer Report.  He worked in our lab under the supervision of Marina Artuso. Levon graduated from the SU Physics Program, and has gone on to graduate school in Physics at Syracuse University.   Gustavo Kertzscher   (Syracuse University) Gustavo worked on the BTEV Pixel Detector during the Summers of  2003 through 2005.  This detector was to be a major part of the BTEV Experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.  He characterized the behavior of several test structures embedded in a new Silicon wafer with the p-spray pixel prototypes that will be used in the upcoming Fermilab beam test.  He measured  I-V curves for a variety of test diodes and for a gate-controlled diode.  This was tricky, since there were a number of noise studies needed to figure out exactly how to to measure currents at the level of a few pA.  He also constructed a dark box for use in laser calibration of these wafers.  Gustavo got exposed to a large number of different aspects of research, and got a lot of hands-on experience.  He helped to build a Cosmic Ray Telescope, using scintillation counters and fast-pulse instrumentation.  He built a single photon light source as a part of his Honors Thesis at Syracuse University.  This work was partially funded by the Renee Crown Honors Program of Syracuse University.  He worked in our lab under the supervision of Marina Artuso.  Gustavo graduated with Honors from the Engineering Physics Program at SU, and has gone on to graduate school in Physics at McGill University.     Julia Tsitron   (Hunter College) Julia worked on the CLEO-c RICH Detector during the Summer of 2003.  This detector is a major part of the CLEO Experiment at the CESR Electron-Positron Accelerator at Cornell University.  She worked on aspects of the RICH electronics, monitoring and calibration.  She made useful analyses of the performance of the RICH electronics, as the experiment gears up for a new phase of operation called CLEO-c.  In particular, she studied the time development of electronic noise, tried a new calibration technique, and analyzed the pulse-height distributions used to measure gain over the entire RICH Detector.  Julia got a lot of experience in programming and hardware, and also learned the kinds of things we do in high energy physics experiments.  You can read about her work in her REU Report, and also in her final presentation.  Julia was stationed at Cornell, and worked with Marina Artuso and Bayar Dambasuren, under the guidance of the Cornell NSF REU program.   Julia has gone on to graduate school at Rutgers University.     Jairo Velasco   (Syracuse University) Jairo worked on the BTEV RICH Detector during the Summer of 2003.  This detector was intended to be a major component of the BTEV Experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and will be built by the Syracuse University HEP Group.  He worked on the R&D for the novel photon detectors that we plan to employ in the RICH, and he made very sensitive measurements detecting single photons (single quanta of light) emitted from a LED (light-emitting diode).  Jairo got a lot of hardware experience this summer, learning about how detectors work and how to read them out using sophisticated electronics, digital oscilloscopes, and other advanced laboratory equipment.  You can read about his work in the presentation of his work made at the end of the summer.  Jairo was a sophomore in the SU Physics Department when he worked in our lab under the supervision of Steve Blusk.    Brian Gantz   (Syracuse University) Brian spent Summer 2003 completing work on his Engineering Physics Thesis.  His final project involved calibration and monitoring of the performance of the FPIX0 chip, the first iteration of the readout for BTEV Pixel Detector, which includes an analog output.  This was to be used in the upcoming beam test to study charge sharing properties of different pixel sensors.  You can ask him about his experience working with our group.  Brian has just received his B.S. in the Engineering Physics Program at SU, and worked in our lab under the supervision of Marina Artuso. Previously, Brian worked on the BTEV Pixel Project during the Summers of 2000 and 2001.  He studied the effect of the saturation at high fields of the electron mobility and its temperature dependence on the properties of the silicon pixel sensors that were to be used in the BTEV Experiment at Fermilab.  He refined the simulation program developed by the Syracuse group (hep-ex/0007054).  In addition, he helped in setting up the pixel sensor laboratory that will perform some key studies on the basic properties of the pixel detectors being developed for BTeV.  Brian very enthusiastically learned a lot of interesting and practical things about the physics of semiconductors, which is very good experience for electrical engineers.  You can read about his work in his REU Report.  He worked in our lab at SU under the supervision of Marina Artuso. Brian has gone on to graduate school in Physics at Syracuse University.   Michael Barnes   (University of Arkansas) Mike worked on the CLEO-III RICH Detector during the Summer of 2002.  This detector is a major part of the CLEO Experiment at the CESR Electron-Positron Accelerator at Cornell University.  He worked on the optimization of RICH electronics performance, by focusing on the development of monitoring tools to localize the sources of noise in the RICH Detector electronics.  In addition, he set up a test stand to help diagnose behavior of the RICH electronics and the data acquisition boards.  Mike learned a lot of software and basic analysis techniques, as well as gaining hardware experience with data acquisition.  You can read about his work in his REU Report.  Mike was stationed at Cornell, and worked with Marina Artuso and Bayar Dambasuren, under the Cornell NSF REU program.   Amanda Deisher   (University of Montana) Amanda worked on the CLEO-III RICH Detector during the Summer of 2001.  The RICH is one of the main components of the upgraded CLEO Experiment at the CESR Electron-Positron Accelerator at Cornell University.  She worked on three separate aspects of the RICH monitoring and calibration software, making extremely useful analyses for the optimization of the RICH electronics.  Amanda got a lot of experience, quickly learning several programming languages (all at once), and also learned about the operations of a big high energy physics experiment.  You can read about her work in her REU Report, and also in her final presentation.  You can also check out her RICH Project webpage.  Amanda was stationed at Cornell, and worked with Ray Mountain and Bayar Dambasuren, under the auspices of the Cornell NSF REU program.  Amanda has gone on to graduate school in Physics at the University of California, Berkeley.   Nick Bronn   (Georgia Tech) Nick worked on the CLEO-III RICH Detector during the Summer of 2000.  This detector is a major part of the recently-upgraded CLEO Experiment at the CESR Electron-Positron Accelerator at Cornell University.  He worked on the RICH monitoring software, providing an extremely valuable component for the diagnosis of a major problem in the performance of the RICH caused by a glitch in the data acquisition system.  Nick gained a lot of experience programming in c++ and java, as well as learning about the real operations of a big high energy physics experiment.  You can read about his efforts in his REU Report, and also in his presentations at the beginning and the end of the summer semester.  Nick was stationed at Cornell, and worked with Ray Mountain and Georg Viehhauser, under the auspices of the Cornell NSF REU program.   Narupon "Tor" Chattrapiban   (Syracuse University) Tor worked on the BTEV Experiment during the Spring and Summer of 2000.  He made very interesting measurements of the optical transmission of a new kind of material called "silica aerogel". This is a material that we planned to use as a Cherenkov radiator in the BTEV RICH Detector at Fermilab.  His work was very valuable in ascertaining the bulk and surface optical properties of aerogel, information which is critical for us to understand.  Tor gained experience in programming in the widely-used graphical language LabVIEW, and investigated phenomena which were complementary to classes he had taken and so was very interesting for him.  (He also learned a useful lesson not to trust everything on the Web.)  From this work, he produced a very nice Undergraduate Thesis.  You can read all about his work in excerpts from his Undergraduate Thesis, as well as from his Project Presentation.  Tor worked in our lab at SU under the supervision of Ray Mountain and Sheldon Stone. Previously, Tor also worked during the Summer of 1999, characterizing some properties of the readout electronics used in the CLEO-III RICH Detector with Marina Artuso.  He presented this work during the conference "A Celebration of Undergraduate Discovery" that took place at Syracuse on April 29, 2000.  Tor went on to graduate school in Physics at the University of Maryland.    Gregory Brons   (Syracuse University) Greg worked on the BTEV Pixel Project during the Spring of 2000, helping to set up the laboratory system to perform precision I-V measurements in semiconductor detectors.  He studied several test structures to determine the breakdown and punch-through properties of different silicon pixel detector and guard ring geometries.  His work is documented in his Research Thesis.  Greg worked in our lab as an Independent Study Course under the supervision of Marina Artuso.

RM, 07/30/08.