CERN scientists have built a 3840 MPixel detector using mobile camera sensors to track antihydrogen’s fall in gravity. This could revolutionize antimatter experiments with real-time, ultra-high precision imaging.
Using a beam of antihydrogen and a groundbreaking detector made from modified mobile phone camera sensors, the AEgIS experiment captures minuscule displacements with unprecedented resolution. This cutting-edge Optical Photon and Antimatter Imager (OPHANIM) not only matches the precision of old photographic plates but adds real-time capabilities and broader scientific potential, opening the door to next-level antimatter research.
Measuring Antihydrogen’s Gravity Fall
Scientists at CERN’s Antimatter Factory are working to measure how antihydrogen behaves under Earth’s gravity, aiming to determine whether it falls in the same way as regular matter. Several experiments, AEgIS (Antihydrogen Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy), ALPHA, and GBAR, are tackling this question using different methods.
The AEgIS experiment creates a horizontal beam of antihydrogen and tracks how far it shifts vertically as it travels. To do this, researchers use a device called a moiré deflectometer, which can detect tiny changes in the particles’ path, along with a detector that captures the exact points where the antihydrogen atoms annihilate.
High-Resolution Detector Innovation
“For AEgIS to work, we need a detector with incredibly high spatial resolution, and mobile camera sensors have pixels smaller than 1 micrometer,” says Francesco Guatieri from the research neutron source FRM II at TUM and Principal Investigator of the research.
“We have integrated 60 of them in the single photographic detector, the Optical Photon and Antimatter Imager (OPHANIM), with the highest number of pixels currently operational: 3840 MPixels. Previously, photographic plates were the only option, but they lacked real-time capabilities. Our solution, demonstrated for antiprotons and directly applicable to antihydrogen, combines photographic-plate-level resolution, real-time diagnostics, self-calibration, and a good particle collection surface, all in one device.”
Converted Mobile Sensors for Physics
Specifically, the researchers used optical image sensors that had previously been shown to be capable of imaging low-energy positrons in real-time with unprecedented resolution.
“We had to strip away the first layers of the sensors, which are made to deal with the advanced integrated electronics of mobile phones,” says Guatieri. “This required high-level electronic design and micro-engineering.”
Broader Potential for Physics Research
“This is a game-changing technology for the observation of the tiny shifts due to gravity in an antihydrogen beam traveling horizontally, and it can also find broader applications in experiments where high position resolution is crucial, or to develop high-resolution trackers,” says AEgIS spokesperson Dr. Ruggero Caravita.
“This extraordinary resolution enables us also to distinguish between different annihilation fragments, paving the way for new research on low-energy antiparticle annihilation in materials,” concludes Caravita.
Reference: “Real-time antiproton annihilation vertexing with submicrometer resolution” by Michael Berghold, Davide Orsucci, Francesco Guatieri, Sara Alfaro, Marcis Auzins, Benedikt Bergmann, Petr Burian, Roberto Sennen Brusa, Antoine Camper, Ruggero Caravita, Fabrizio Castelli, Giovanni Cerchiari, Roman Jerzy Ciuryło, Ahmad Chehaimi, Giovanni Consolati, Michael Doser, Kamil Eliaszuk, Riley Craig Ferguson, Matthias Germann, Anna Giszczak, Lisa Glöggler, Łukasz Graczykowski, Malgorzata Grosbart, Natali Gusakova, Fredrik Gustafsson, Stefan Haider, Saiva Huck, Christoph Hugenschmidt, Malgorzata Anna Janik, Tymoteusz Henryk Januszek, Grzegorz Kasprowicz, Kamila Kempny, Ghanshyambhai Khatri, Łukasz Kłosowski, Georgy Kornakov, Valts Krumins, Lidia Lappo, Adam Linek, Sebastiano Mariazzi, Pawel Moskal, Dorota Nowicka, Piyush Pandey, Daniel PĘcak, Luca Penasa, Vojtech Petracek, Mariusz Piwiński, Stanislav Pospisil, Luca Povolo, Francesco Prelz, Sadiqali Rangwala, Tassilo Rauschendorfer, Bharat Rawat, Benjamin Rienäcker, Volodymyr Rodin, Ole Røhne, Heidi Sandaker, Sushil Sharma, Petr Smolyanskiy, Tomasz Sowiński, Dariusz Tefelski, Theodoros Vafeiadis, Marco Volponi, Carsten Peter Welsch, Michal Zawada, Jakub Zielinski, Nicola Zurlo and AEḡIS Collaboration, 2 April 2025, Science Advances.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.ads1176
Master’s students Michael Berghold and Markus Münster at the TUM School of Engineering and Design played a key role in the project.
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