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As part of the Next Generation Neutron Detector project, which is funded by the National Science Foundation through a collaborative major research instrumentation grant, MoNA students and researchers are busy building prototype detectors. The prototype detectors are being used to collect data that will help us to optimize the final detector design. This detector is based on Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM). In order to allow for different detector configurations, the prototype is highly modular and designed to connect to interlocking plastic bricks (LEGO). So we can call these detector bricks! With this we can very quickly test different detector configurations.

But before the prototypes can be tested, they need to be built. For the design we use an integrated cad software (Fusion 360) that allows us to do the printed circuit board (PCB) design and the mechanical design. Students learned to use this software and created design variations that lets us test different types of SiPMs.

Once the PCBs and electronics components arrive, the detector bricks need to be assembled. The SiPM chips are between 3 mm by 3 mm and 6 mm by 6 mm, and have a Ball Grid Array, tiny solder dots that are hidden under the chip, to be mounted onto the PCB. This requires some very precise work in order to apply the solder paste with a stencil and to position the SiPM. After this the detector bricks a placed in a reflow oven for soldering.



So far we have assembled over 150 detector bricks, with a large fraction built by undergraduate students! Testing and evaluating of different detector configurations is under way at the participating schools.




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Members of the MoNA Collaboration attended the 2024 American Physical Society April Meeting which was held on April 03-07, 2024 at the Sacramento Convocation Center in Sacramento, California.

 




A total of 12 oral and poster presentations on MoNA-related science or by a member of the MoNA Collaboration were delivered throughout the meeting, covering three main topics that included low energy nuclear structure, instrumentation, and education and outreach. The list of oral and poster presentations on MoNA related science and education at the 2024 APS/April meeting is provided below.


 

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Several members of the MoNA Collaboration attended the 6th joint meeting between the American Physical Society Division of Nuclear Physics (APS/DNP) and the Physical Society of Japan (JPS), which was held on November 26-December 1, 2023 at the Hilton Waikoloa Village, on Hawaii's Big Island.

The MoNA Collaboration at the 2023 APS/DNP (Left) and the 2023 Physicists Inspiring the Next Generation (Right).





A total of 20 oral and poster presentations on MoNA-related science or by a member of the MoNA Collaboration were delivered throughout the meeting, covering a wide range of topics that included new detector technologies for radioactive isotope beam facilities, multi-neutron systems, novel materials and manufacturing processes for nuclear physics detectors, nuclear reaction, applications of advanced statistics and machine learning methods in nuclear physics, nuclear structure and fission studies, super heavy elements and fission, and instrumentation for targets and sources, low energy particle detectors and particle tracking, as well as in education and outreach. The list of oral and poster presentations on MoNA related science and education at the 2023 APS/DNP meeting is provided below.


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