The International Research Training Group (IRTG – forskerskole) on intelligent detectors is developing and applying detection systems for particle and nuclear physics that integrate modern information technologies as key features. The design, development and operation of such detectors is the key for advanced nuclear, particle and astro physics. It requires a profound knowledge in a variety of fields that is made available in the interdisciplinary cooperation of physicists working on detector design, signal readout and data analysis, together with departments that focus on information science and work on signal processing, pattern recognition and data management. Some of the technological aspects involved include the design of application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC), design and programming of circuits implementing programmable electronics (FPGAs) and the design and operation of large scale compute facilities (Cluster, GRID) that have to be considered an integral part of next generation detector systems.
The International Research Training Group "Intelligent Detectors" started in October 2004 as a joint project between the universities in Heidelberg and Mannheim (Germany) and Bergen and Oslo. The anticipated duration was nine years. The project was reviewed by an international expert panel (on behalf of the DFG) and due to the positive evaluation the IRTG was funded in Germany for the second half of the period. All partners have decided to continue the IRTG beyond 2014.
Regular lecture weeks and workshops organized by the IRTG guarantee the exchange of knowledge among the students but also between the scientists in Germany and Norway. The Nuclear Physics and the Microelectronics groups at IFT participate in the IRTG. The topics of previous lecture weeks at UiB were "Advanced Instrumentation for Future Accelerator Experiments", "Trigger and DAQ systems", "Multi-Core Programming", "Medical Physics", "Sensor operation in harsh and remote environment", "MC transport codes in medical physics", "High-Performance Computing", "Space Science", "Machine Learning", "Imaging with particles", “iGRAM 2023 – Introducing Geant4, Root and Machine Learning”. The topic of the most recent lecture week in June 2024 was "Next generation particle detectors" which attracted about 40 participants.
Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors (MAPS) play a key role in modern radiation detection, with applications ranging from particle and nuclear physics to space and medical physics. One of the main R&D topics in the field is to improve the timing resolution of such pixelated silicon sensors and to achieve about 20 psecs. We are improving our local set-up of a test-bench for silicon pixel sensors allowing the measurement of the timing resolution. Since all lecture weeks include hands-on lab-exercises, this setup would allow PhD (and master and bachelor) students to gain experience with a key sensor technology.