Extending Experimental and Theoretical Capabilities
Muon beams are too wide, and detectors not precise enough, to study some of today’s most interesting materials, which can often only be made in small quantities. The Technology projects address this and other limits: they develop finer beams, faster and colder detectors, higher-pressure sample environments and the theory needed to interpret the data. In parallel, concept studies explore what could come next, from re-accelerated muon beams to a transmission muon microscope.
A low-energy muon beam of tunable energy, to be focused to less than 100 µm, for studying microscopic samples and devices too small for today’s beams to probe.
Designing a way to re-accelerate muons from the microbeam to MeV energies, with a first prototype for a few hundred keV, while keeping the beam narrow and its energy well defined.
A feasibility study for a transmission muon microscope, which could image samples far thicker than an electron microscope can penetrate.
Silicon pixel detectors with a timing resolution of the order of 100 picoseconds, opening up new muon experiments and muon spin spectroscopy (µSR) on sub-millimeter samples.
Detectors developed to operate at millikelvin temperatures, to track decay positrons and measure muonic X-rays with high energy resolution right next to cryogenic experiments.
