TowerJazz will develop CERN’s Image Sensor

22 November, 2013

TowerJazz technology for CMOS Image Sensors has been chosen by CERN researchers to develop monolithic silicon pixel detectors for strongly interacting matter studies

The global specialty foundry TowerJazz,  said it was chosen to provide the sensor for the upgrade of the Inner Tracking System (ITS) of the ALICE experiment at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.

ALICE detector on the Large Hadron Collider ring in CERN
ALICE detector on the Large Hadron Collider ring in CERN

ALICE is a  10,000 tons detector specially designed for heavy-ion experiment in order to study the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quark-gluon plasma in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. This international scientific collaboration includes about 1,300 members from 140 institutions in 36 countries. The sensitive detector used for these studies is located 60 m underground at the LHC, and makes many measurements of the particles emerging from carefully planned collisions.

At the heart of the ALICE detector there is  the ALICE Inner Tracking System (ITS), a 10 m2 large silicon tracking detector providing precise information on the path of the electrical charged particles. The ALICE organisation has recently decided to upgrade the ITS system and build the largest silicon tracking detector in the world, based on silicon detectors. This upgrade is planned to be installed in 2018. It will help the scientists to study strongly interacting matter and the properties of quark-gluon plasma.

TowerJazz technology for CMOS Image Sensors prove to be efficient not only for visible light detection, but also for high sensitive particle detecting. This technology has been chosen by ALICE researchers to develop monolithic silicon pixel detectors for the ITS upgrade of the ALICE detector.

ALICE experiment spokesperson, Dr. Paolo Giubellino, said: “The upgrade of the Inner Tracking System is a cornerstone for the future of the ALICE experiment and will allow a precise determination of the properties of the quark-gluon plasma, which will be a major scientific achievement. An essential component in this upgrade is the development of monolithic silicon pixel detectors together with TowerJazz to obtain a unique low mass tracking detector.”

For more information on CERN: http://home.web.cern.ch/.

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