Ponente
Descripción
The LiquidO technology brings a novel approach to particle detectors by using the medium’s opacity to stochastically confine photons within a few cm near its creation point and collect the trapped light through arrays of wavelength-shifting fibers. This arrangement allows high-resolution imaging and highly efficient event-by-event particle identification down to the MeV scale. With the potential background rejection capabilities and the possibility of loading dopants at high concentrations, since transparency is no longer required, LiquidO opens up the possibility of a large number of new physics measurements in various areas of particle, nuclear, and medical physics.
In this contribution, we will address current and future projects in which the opaque technology is planned to be used and in which CIEMAT is involved, including the results of a 10-litre prototype detector demonstrating light confinement. As next R&D efforts, a new demonstrator (~100-liters) called Mini-𝛾 is to be constructed in the coming months and should provide major validation of the LiquidO’s performance, as it can explore event topologies in the scale of 0.5 m equipped length and is crucial to exercise full scale engineering solutions for larger scale detectors. The LiquidO technology is also embedded in the AntiMatter-OTech EIC/UKRI-funded project focused on industrial reactor innovation, where a 10-ton detector is going to be installed very close to the reactors of the Chooz nuclear power plant in France, without an underground facility.
