Physics and Applications of Low Temperature Detectors

During the last twenty years, the development of low temperature micro-calorimeters progressed rapidly to meet the increasing demand for highly sensitive energy dispersive detectors. Presently they are used in a very large number of applications including direct measurement of the neutrino mass, Dark Matter searches, among which also Axion searches, study of the cosmic microwave background, study of QED in extreme condition at Experimental Storage Rings and for nuclear forensic. For a review, see for example "Low Temperature Detectors" in Topics in Applied Physics 99, Ed. C. Enss. (2005). The lecture cycle will start with an introductory hour followed by the description of the concept of micro-calorimeters. The following lectures will deal with the different temperature sensors. In each of these lectures the description of the detector from the solid state point of view (description of the thermodynamical properties), the methods to fabricate them, how they are read out and where they are used will be discussed. The second part of the course will be centered on the current applications. The different physics cases will be presented and the ideas to optimize the detector performance for the different experiments will be described.

Topics

1) Introduction + calorimeter concept

2) Neutron Trasmutation Doped Germanium Thermistors (NTD-Ge)

3) Transition Edge Sensors (TESs)

4) Metallic Magnetic Calorimeters (MMCs)

5) Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs)

6) Low noise dc-SQUID read-out

7) Multiplexing Techniques

8) Cryogenics

9) Neutrino Physics (Neutrino Mass, Double beta Decay, Coherent Neutrino Nucleus Scattering)

10) Dark Matter (WIMPs and Axions)

11) Astrophysics

12) Atomic Physics

13) Metrology

14) Nuclear forensics