Prof Jeff Hartnell - LiquidO opaque scintillator detectors and the physics opportunities

Wednesday 6 May 2026, 13:30 → 15:00 Europe/London

610 (G.O. Jones Bulding)

https://cern.zoom.us/j/67501511814?pwd=4RlJLpbhXENmVQVLaPAbMuweQ5xIwM.1

About the speaker: 

Dr Jeffrey Hartnell joined is a Professor at the University of Sussex, which he joined in 2007 on a national STFC research fellowship. Prior to Sussex, he worked at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (2005–2007) and obtained his DPhil from the University of Oxford.

He is co-spokesperson of the CLOUD neutrino experiment, which is constructing a 10-ton novel opaque scintillator detector 35 metres from the nuclear reactor at Chooz, France. He has been a key member of the NOvA neutrino experiment at Fermilab for over a decade, serving as physics analysis co-coordinator, leading the muon (anti)neutrino disappearance analysis group, and acting as Chair of the NOvA Institutional Board.

He was awarded the IoP HEPP Group Prize in 2013 and elected Fellow of the IoP in 2017. He also held a European Research Council grant, AntineutrinoNOvA.

13:30 → 14:00 Biscuits and Coffee

14:00 → 15:00 LiquidO opaque scintillator detectors and the physics opportunities

Radiation detectors enable many aspects of our modern lives, from the
light sensors in our smartphone cameras to PET scanners that inform
treatment of cancer. Particle physicists have often led the development
and exploitation of cutting edge radiation detectors to identify
particles while measuring their energies, positions and directions.

Many radiation detectors use scintillators, which traditionally have
nearly always been transparent to allow detection of the light. Our new
counter-intuitive approach called “LiquidO” is to use highly scattering
opaque scintillator. The opacity causes the light to bounce around close
to where it is produced and then optical fibres extract the light. By
looking at which fibres are hit and how much light each one sees,
precise particle position and directional information can be obtained.
We've demonstrated that our approach outperforms existing scintillator
technology by a factor of two. With further R&D the resolution is
expected to improve by 5-10x, for a similar cost to existing technology.
Or, importantly for some applications, reduce the detector cost by 5-10x
while maintaining the resolution.

There are multiple applications for high-resolution and cost-effective
radiation imaging, from Compton cameras for gamma ray imaging to
precision muon tomography. In particle physics, the CLOUD neutrino
experiment will pioneer new physics measurements using the novel LiquidO
opaque scintillator technology.

Convener: Prof. Jeff Hartnell (University of Sussex)