Superconductive detectors to measure the electron neutrino mass with sub-eV sensitivity

par Andrea Giachero

lundi 30 nov. 2015, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Paris

Seminar room (LLR)

HOLMES is a new experiment to directly measure the neutrino mass with a sensitivity below 1 eV. HOLMES will perform a calorimetric measurement of the energy released in the decay of 163Ho. The calorimetric measurement eliminates systematic uncertainties arising from the use of external beta sources, as in experiments with beta spectrometers. This measurement was proposed in 1982 by A. De Rujula and M. Lusignoli, but only recently the detector technological progress has allowed to design a sensitive experiment. HOLMES will deploy a large array of low temperature microcalorimeters with implanted 163Ho nuclei. The detectors used for the HOLMES experiment will be Mo/Cu bilayers TESs (Transition Edge Sensors) on SiNx membrane with gold absorbers. Microwave frequency domain read out is the best available technique to read out large array of such detectors. In this seminar the presenter outlines the project design, the present status of the Holmium production, of the implantation system, of the detector development and the first preliminary results obtained with the developed microwave frequency multiplex technique.