2022.02.04
Professor Young-Il Kwon(Physics), Yonsei University, recently completed the mass production test of the advanced silicon pixel sensor ‘ALPIDE’, which is required to improve the performance of the ALICE experiment.
The ALICE experiment at the European Institute of Nuclear Physics(CERN)is a multinational giant experiment consisting of 39 countries, 175 institutions and more than 1,900 participants. We want to reproduce and observe the primordial universe that would have formed one millionth of a second after the Big Bang in the laboratory. In Korea, seven universities are participating in the ALICE experiment as a coalition(Korea Alice Experiment Team)with support from over-donations and research foundations, and one of the main tasks of the alliance was the mass production test of ALPIDE chips(60,000). ALIPIDE is an advanced silicon pixel sensor that is essential to improve the performance of the experiment, and by performing 80% of the test, Yonsei University was able to successfully complete the mission of the Korean team. This is due to the excellence of the test system ‘COREA-YS-01(C-On Research Equipment Automation for Yonsei model 01)’, which Yonsei has produced with small and medium-sized enterprises in Korea, centered on C-On Co., Ltd., which has been able to complete such a huge amount of mass production inspection in a limited time. In recognition of this, the ALICE Research group recently awarded the ‘Industrial Award’to C-On Co., Ltd.
The 'Industrial Award' is awarded to companies that have made a technically significant contribution to the ALICE experiment. In the mid-2000s, more than 10 companies won experimental builders, and in recent years, five additional companies, including C-On Co., Ltd., won awards. C-On Co., Ltd. is the first Korean company to be recognized for its contribution to high-energy nuclear and particle experiments with the "Award".
Professor Kwon has previously conducted mass production and testing of PIN-type SILICON SENSORS to improve the performance of the PHENIX EXPERIMENT(A huge U.S.-led multinational joint study). Therefore, we were well aware of our domestic capabilities, and before the construction of COREA-YS-01, we fully reviewed the capabilities of C-On Co., Ltd. However, it was not easy to cross the walls of CERN, Europe's leading institute for basic science. Active probe board production was achieved through active board production by Nautis Co., Ltd. and Professor Kwon's research team and probe production by EQENG Co., Ltd. The dedicated efforts of Yonsei university. and C-On for nearly two years enabled the realization of COREA-YS-01.
The built COREA-YS-01 is installed at the Yonsei Science Museum and is being tested by Yonsei Research personnel. Together, the equipment produced by selected European companies has twice the test capacity and is competitive in price. The effective communication of the researchers in charge of the mass production test maintained a stable test environment and successfully conducted mass production tests on 80% of the total ALPIDE sensor.
ALPIDE was also adopted in the construction of detectors for the next generation of high-energy nuclear physics experiments SPHENIX(Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA)and MPD(Russian Institute of Nuclear Physics), representing the United States and Russia, and began to be applied beyond the field to nuclear medicine and space. As a result, the utilization of COREA-YS-01 also shines. Korean researchers interested in the SPHENIX experiment are performing mass production tests of alpide using Corea-YS-01, and mass production tests of other tasks will also be performed by COREA-YS-01. This reverses the conventional belief that Korea is weak in building sensors and detectors for high-energy physics experiments and informs Korea's potential capabilities.
"We have focused on discovering what our country can do well and channeling it into research.”We have confidence in the potential that our country has in future pixel sensors and we will work to prove it," said Professor Kwon.