Particle and nuclear physics instrumentation and its broad connections

Subatomic physics shares with other basic sciences the need to innovate, invent, and develop tools, techniques, and technologies to carry out its mission to explore the nature of matter, energy, space, and time. In some cases, entire detectors or technologies developed specifically for particle physics research have been adopted by other fields of research or in commercial applications. In most cases, however, the development of new devices and technologies by particle physics for its own research has added value to other fields of research or to applications beneficial to society by integrating them in the existing technologies. Thus, detector research and development has not only advanced the current state of technology for particle physics, but has often advanced research in other fields of science and has underpinned progress in numerous applications in medicine and national security. At the same time particle physics has profited immensely from developments in industry and applied them to great benefit for the use of particle physics detectors. This symbiotic relationship has seen strong mutual benefits with sometimes unexpected far reach.

Figure 1

A representative example of a collider detector: the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The detector is built in concentric layers surrounding the interaction point. See text for more details. Figure courtesy of CERN.

Figure 2

A commercial positron emission tomography (PET) scanner. Much of the technology underlying this scanner and recent improvements come from particle physics. Figure courtesy of GE Healthcare.