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Brookhaven scientists develop cold electronics for DUNE’s liquid-argon detectors
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Summary
A presenter described how Brookhaven National Laboratory engineers built specialized cold microelectronics that will operate in liquid argon to help the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) detect elusive neutrinos as they travel an 800-mile beam.
Unidentified Speaker, a presenter, said more than 500,000,000,000 invisible particles can pass through a thumbnail in the time it takes to finish a single sentence, using that image to introduce neutrinos and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). “They're called neutrinos,” the presenter said, adding that although tiny, neutrinos could hold clues to the evolution of the universe.
DUNE is an international effort of more than 1,400 researchers, the presenter said, and will send the world’s most intense neutrino beam about 800 miles through Earth’s crust so scientists can observe how the particles change “flavors” during transit. To record the rare interactions that do occur, the experiment relies on large detectors filled with liquid argon maintained at roughly -303 degrees Fahrenheit.
The presenter described the technical challenge at the heart of the detector design: measuring the minute electric currents left when neutrinos interact in the liquid argon. “These cold microelectronics developed by Brookhaven scientists and engineers will detect the fingerprints enabling the ghost like particles to be seen like never before,” the presenter said. Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) was explicitly named in the presentation as the developer of those microelectronics.
The talk emphasized scale and collaboration: building detectors that function at cryogenic temperatures and read out tiny signals requires specialized engineering and coordination across the DUNE collaboration. The presenter did not provide a construction schedule, budget figures, or specific deployment dates for the Brookhaven components.
The presenter framed the development of cold electronics as a critical enabling technology for DUNE’s scientific goals and reiterated that the collaboration involves more than 1,400 researchers working to make those measurements possible.
