LFoundry has been awarded the contract for the manufacture
of silicon based sensors and electronic devices for INFN (National Institute of
Nuclear Physics). The procedure for identifying
and selecting the contractor, which began last September, ended on 6
March and concerns the three-year project supply of three classes of products: Silicon
Photomultipliers (SiPM), charged particle and X-ray detectors and CMOS
integrated circuits on high-resistivity wafers. The implementation of SiPM will
be addressed to various projects
including DarkSide20k, the largest international experiment ever conducted on
dark matter. As recently announced by the INFN, the experiment is scheduled to start on 2021 and will
be set up in the Gran Sasso National Laboratories.
"The key factors that have made the selection of
LFoundry possible are two: the long experience on the development of high
quality sensors and the ability to process silicon wafers on both sides" -
explains Paolo Organtini,
Director of Technology Development at LFoundry – “The available SiPM technology
has been developed and subsequently transferred to us by the Fondazione Bruno
Kessler of Trento, thanks to a collaboration started a few years ago. The high
performance makes them excellent candidates for scientific experiments as well
as for sophisticated medical equipment, such as PET. Of particular scientific
interest is the experiment of the international collaboration DarkSide-20k for
the search for dark matter. There are several scientific evidences of the fact
that the matter we know, would represent only 5% of the mass of the universe.
The rest would be given by about 25% of invisible matter called dark matter and
70% of another mysterious form that we call dark energy. The role of SiPM will
be to detect the very faint light signals emitted by the interactions of dark
matter particles with the nuclei of ordinary matter, consisting of 30 tons of
liquid argon. To do this, in addition to a very low background noise, the
detectors must be able to measure with extreme precision the duration of the light
signals, in the range of nano- and microseconds. Based on the duration of the
signal, in fact, one can understand whether
the event was produced by background radiation or dark matter ".
"We are proud of this result. LFoundry, thanks to the victory of the tender in which we have gladly participated has the opportunity to play a crucial role in the development of scientific knowledge of global importance. It would be wonderful, one day, to be able to say that it has provided an important contribution in giving experimental evidence on the existence of dark matter; a dream that has its foundations in the skills of LFoundry people”Fabrizio Famà, vice president of Human Resources and Corporate Affairs