tbehrens's blog

Taylor, a REHS intern, is working on Ludlum Fibers this summer. By combining strands of scintillating fibers, he’ll be able to make a block of fibers for a more precise scintillator.
One of the ways muons are detected is through their charge. However, if you want a visual of the muon hitting the earth you need a scintillator. A scintillator will emit light when a muon passes through it. Consequently, when a scintillator is hooked up to a camera the path of a muon can be seen.

For a large scintillator to be accurate, it needs to be comprised of small scintillators. Right now what is being used is simply a large block of solid scintillating material, which doesn’t provide a very accurate picture, so Taylor is creating a block of similar size out of small fibers. By combining small fibers into a large block the change in the muon’s path is more accurate because the difference between each fiber is visible.

Taylor is creating this block by making strips of the fibers, which he does by wrapping them around a block so the fibers will line up next to each other, and then are glued together. After all the strips are assembled, the strips will be glued on top of each other to create a block of tiny fibers.

Left: The glass dome is used as a vacuum to ensure the glue that is used on the fibers is free of air bubbles. Right: Taylor wraps the fibers to create a strip.

For more on Ludlum click here.

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