Capital Equipment

The main objective of this bid is to enhance and extend our core science program through the provision of capital equipment.

The Flip Chip Bonding Equipment will allow us to provide hybrid pixel systems for the ATLAS and LHCb upgrade. It is a necessary addition to the LSDC in order to capitalize on earlier STFC investment and the unique expertise and skills set of our staff. Our research and development into the radiation hardening of silicon sensors would also be greatly enriched by this equipment.

The Gigabit FPGA Development System will complement our contributions to the LHCb upgrade and LBNE readout systems, and could be extended further into DAQ concepts for the proposed ILC in Japan.

A Large Composite Oven will allow for the production of larger carbon fiber structures within our Advanced Materials Laboratory. It would be used for the production of light-weight support structures for ATLAS, LHCb and CTA and would support R&D studies in collaboration with CERN into metallized carbon fiber beam pipes.

A Cyro-Cooler for use in our Liquid Argon Laboratory would greatly increase the efficiency and productivity of our R&D, while reducing operating costs. It would greatly also increase the impact of our work within the proposed LAr TPC R&D at CERN (SPSC-E-007) and LBNE collaboration.

A Portable Measuring Arm CMM for use in the Liverpool's Physics Mechanical Workshop would have an immediate impact on the quality and throughput of the tooling we are producing for the ATLAS and LHCB upgrade. It would also be of great benefit in the production of mould tools used in the Advanced Materials Lab due to their complex geometries.

A Xeon-Phi Multi-core System in order to extend on our studies of GPU systems into novel, cost efficient computing for use at the LHC experiments, T2K and LBNE.

A Small CNC Combination Lathe for use in Liverpool's Physics Mechanical Workshop would greatly increase the efficiency of the production of small precision turned components required for ATLAS upgrade staves and associated mechanics, LHCb upgrade VELO mechanics, LBNE TPC mechanics, and prototyping work. This could increase throughput of components by up to 5% / annum.

Our innovations have found applications of benefit to UK plc and the public. Past highlights include:

1. Joint projects with e2v on the production of sensor technologies
2. Developments with Micron Semiconductor Ltd, enabling the retention of its leadership in the production of wide variety of detectors.
3. Collaborations with electronics companies which enable them to bid for major EU contracts.
a. Stevenage Circuits, based on LHCb VELO readout hybrid development, have extended these
ultra reliable processes for the ATLAS tracker upgrade.
b. Hawk Electronics won an industry award based on its VELO work, and is now bidding for large
EU contracts.
4. Adaption of T2K technology for IAEA towards a robust, cost effective antineutrino detector for passive reactor monitoring.
5. LHCb VELO detectors are being used as a permanent beam monitor at Clatterbridge Oncology Unit.
6. Collaboration in an EU program to develop a modular, mobile neutron detection system for locating fissile materials.
7. Foundation of the AiMes Institute (2003) for exploitation of Grid technologies. As well as seeding e-business related companies and winning entrepreneur awards, the Institute itself eventually became a commercial, award winning company.

The capital equipment in this bid would strengthen our ability to provide impact. In particular, the requested flip chip bonding equipment represents an STFC investment in a strategic technology within UK universities vital for competitiveness and training of future generations of technical and research staff. The flip chip bonding equipment would accelerate our world-leading studies to radiation harden silicon. These innovations have shown benefits to areas where the sensitivity, speed or radiation tolerance of sensors are important, such as homeland security and health applications. Excess capacity will be made available to other academic users in the UK. UK industrial partners will also be able to access the facility; Micron Semiconductor (UK) Ltd, in particular, could greatly expand their interest in hybrid pixel products.

In addition to the provision of larger, light weight support structures for ATLAS and LHCb upgrades and CTA, the large composite oven will enable the Advance Materials Lab to produce larger components for Liverpool's Nuclear Physics and Mechanical Engineering groups. We are collaborating with mechanical engineering students, teaching carbon fiber techniques, and providing elements for national aircraft and the international "formula student" race car competition.

Our mechanical workshop makes an essential contribution to our core program and has an important role in education and outreach within the University through the training of mechanical apprentices. The investment in state-of-the-art equipment for the mechanical workshop will enable our apprentices to enhance their skills and working practices particularly in CNC programming, metrology and advanced materials.

Our work in high performance, low cost computing and readout system will could be utilized by any application where cost efficient solutions for numerically intensive computing with off-the-shelf components are needed.

We are active in outreach with Prof. Tara Shears acting as one of the most popular communicators of particle physics in the country. LHCb VELO modules and a Liverpool Physicist (Dr. G D Patel) will feature in the LHC exhibition at London's Science Museum. Other members of our staff have appeared in ad-hoc interviews round the world including Greek and Russian Television and national press.

We have an active program with schools, including Masterclass events and talks, inviting local schools to CERN and creating a CERN based Summer School for the brightest pre-university students. We also run a 4 week Nuffield course at Liverpool for school children considering a career in Science get to utilize state-of-the-art equipment.