arXiv subjects

Mathieu Benoit

Publications and source records attributed to Mathieu Benoit.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Advancements and future expansions of the Caribou DAQ system

Caribou is a versatile data acquisition (DAQ) system developed within several collaborative frameworks (CERN EP R&D, DRD3, AIDAinnova, and Tangerine) to support laboratory and test-beam characterization of novel silicon pixel detectors. It combines a custom Control and Readout (CaR) board with a Xilinx Zynq System-on-Chip (SoC) running project-wide shared firmware and software stacks. The system architecture emphasizes reusability, flexibility, and ease of integration. The CaR board provides essential interfaces such as programmable power supplies, voltage and current references, high-speed ADCs, and configurable I/O lines for detector control and readout. The SoC runs an embedded Linux distribution built with PetaLinux and integrates two main components: Peary, a C++ embedded DAQ application providing hardware abstraction, configuration management, logging, and multi-device control through Command Line (CLI) and Python interfaces; and Boreal, a common Caribou FPGA firmware framework offering reusable modules and automated build workflows for user-specific bit files. The next major milestone in Caribou's evolution is the transition to version 2.0, based on a Zynq UltraScale+ System-on-Module (SoM) architecture. This paper presents the recent progress and future prospects of the project and describes recent hardware, firmware, and software developments preparing the system for the upcoming CaR board v2.0.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2025

Caribou - A versatile data acquisition system for silicon pixel detector prototyping

Caribou is a versatile data acquisition system used in multiple collaborative frameworks (CERN EP R&D, DRD3, AIDAinnova, Tangerine) for laboratory and test-beam qualification of novel silicon pixel detector prototypes. The system is built around a common hardware, firmware and software stack shared accross different projects, thereby drastically reducing the development effort and cost. It consists of a custom Control and Readout (CaR) board and a commercial Xilinx Zynq System-on-Chip (SoC) platform. The SoC platform runs a full Yocto distribution integrating the custom software framework (Peary) and a custom FPGA firmware built within a common firmware infrastructure (Boreal). The CaR board provides a hardware environment featuring various services such as powering, slow-control, and high-speed data links for the target detector prototype. Boreal and Peary, in turn, offer firmware and software architectures that enable seamless integration of control and readout for new devices. While the first version of the system used a SoC platform based on the ZC706 evaluation board, migration to a Zynq UltraScale+ architecture is progressing towards the support of the ZCU102 board and the ultimate objective of integrating the SoC functionality directly into the CaR board, eliminating the need for separate evaluation boards. This paper describes the Caribou system, focusing on the latest project developments and showcasing progress and future plans across its hardware, firmware, and software components.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2022

The Future of Gamma-Ray Experiments in the MeV-EeV Range

Gamma-rays, the most energetic photons, carry information from the far reaches of extragalactic space with minimal interaction or loss of information. They bring messages about particle acceleration in environments so extreme they cannot be reproduced on earth for a closer look. Gamma-ray astrophysics is so complementary with collider work that particle physicists and astroparticle physicists are often one in the same. Gamma-ray instruments, especially the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, have been pivotal in major multi-messenger discoveries over the past decade. There is presently a great deal of interest and scientific expertise available to push forward new technologies, to plan and build space- and ground-based gamma-ray facilities, and to build multi-messenger networks with gamma rays at their core. It is therefore concerning that before the community comes together for planning exercises again, much of that infrastructure could be lost to a lack of long-term planning for support of gamma-ray astrophysics. Gamma-rays with energies from the MeV to the EeV band are therefore central to multiwavelength and multi-messenger studies to everything from astroparticle physics with compact objects, to dark matter studies with diffuse large scale structure. These goals and new discoveries have generated a wave of new gamma-ray facility proposals and programs. This paper highlights new and proposed gamma-ray technologies and facilities that have each been designed to address specific needs in the measurement of extreme astrophysical sources that probe some of the most pressing questions in fundamental physics for the next decade. The proposed instrumentation would also address the priorities laid out in the recent Astro2020 Decadal Survey, a complementary study by the astrophysics community that provides opportunities also relevant to Snowmass.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2022

Argonne Pixel Tracking Telescope at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility

The Argonne Pixel Tracking Telescope is installed at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility. The telescope consists of six planar n^{+}-in-n silicon sensors with a pixel size of 250 {\times} 50 {\mu}m^{2}. The instrumentation of the telescope is described including the electrical and mechanical setups. A 120 GeV proton beam is used to evaluate the telescope performance using criteria such as the cluster size, pixel tracking efficiency, and spatial resolution. The spatial resolution of the telescope is measured to be 72 {\mu}m {\times} 13 {\mu}m.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2019

Performance evaluation of thin active-edge planar sensors for the CLIC vertex detector

Thin planar silicon sensors with a pitch of 55um, active edge and various guard ring layouts are investigated, using two-dimensional finite-element T-CAD simulations. The simulation results have been compared to experimental data, and an overall good agreement is observed. It is demonstrated that 50um thin planar silicon sensors with active edge with floating guard ring or without guard ring can be operated fully efficiently up to the physical edge of the sensor. The simulation findings are used to identify suitable sensor designs for application in the high-precision vertex detector of the future CLIC linear $e^+e^-$ collider.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2019

Simulations of CMOS pixel sensors with a small collection electrode, improved for a faster charge collection and increased radiation tolerance

CMOS pixel sensors with a small collection electrode combine the advantages of a small sensor capacitance with the advantages of a fully monolithic design. The small sensor capacitance results in a large ratio of signal-to-noise and a low analogue power consumption, while the monolithic design reduces the material budget, cost and production effort. However, the low electric field in the pixel corners of such sensors results in an increased charge collection time, that makes a fully efficient operation after irradiation and a timing resolution in the order of nanoseconds challenging for pixel sizes larger than approximately forty micrometers. This paper presents the development of concepts of CMOS sensors with a small collection electrode to overcome these limitations, using three-dimensional Technology Computer Aided Design simulations. The studied design uses a 0.18 micrometer process implemented on a high-resistivity epitaxial layer.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2019

Pixel detector R&D for the Compact Linear Collider

The physics aims at the proposed future CLIC high-energy linear $e^+ e^-$ collider pose challenging demands on the performance of the detector system. In particular the vertex and tracking detectors have to combine precision measurements with robustness against the expected high rates of beam-induced backgrounds. A spatial resolution of a few microns and a material budget down to 0.2\% of a radiation length per vertex-detector layer have to be achieved together with a few nanoseconds time stamping accuracy. These requirements are addressed with innovative technologies in an ambitious detector R\&D programme, comprising hardware developments as well as detailed device and Monte Carlo simulations based on TCAD, Geant4 and Allpix-Squared. Various fine pitch hybrid silicon pixel detector technologies are under investigation for the CLIC vertex detector. The CLICpix and CLICpix2 readout ASICs with \SI{25}{\micro\meter} pixel pitch have been produced in a \SI{65}{\nano\meter} commercial CMOS process and bump-bonded to planar active edge sensors as well as capacitively coupled to High-Voltage (HV) CMOS sensors. Monolithic silicon tracking detectors are foreseen for the large surface ($\approx$ \SI{140}{\meter\squared}) CLIC tracker. Fully monolithic prototypes are currently under development in High-Resistivity (HR) CMOS, HV-CMOS and Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technologies. The laboratory and beam tests of all recent prototypes profit from the development of the CaRIBou universal readout system. This talk presents an overview of the CLIC pixel-detector R\&D programme, focusing on recent test-beam and simulation results.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2019

Electrical characterization of AMS aH18 HV-CMOS after neutrons and protons irradiation

In view of the tracking detector application to the ATLAS High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) upgrade, we have developed a new generation of High Voltage CMOS (HV-CMOS) monolithic pixel-sensor prototypes featuring the AMS aH18 (180 nm) commercial CMOS technology. By fully integrating both analog and digital readout-circuitry on the same particle-detecting substrate, current challenges of hybrid sensor technologies, i.e., larger readout input-capacitance, lower production-yield, and higher production and integration cost, can be downscaled. The large electrode design using high-resistivity substrates actively helps to mitigate the charge-trapping effects, making these chips radiation hard. The surface and bulk damage induced in high irradiation environment change the effective doping concentration of the device, which modulates high electric fields as the reverse-bias voltage increases. This effect can cause high leakage current and premature electrical breakdown, driven by impact ionization. In order to assess the characteristics of heavily irradiated samples, we have carried out dedicated campaigns on ATLASPix1 chips that included irradiations of neutrons and protons, made at different facilities. Here, we report on the electrical characterization of the irradiated samples at different ambient conditions, also in comparison to their pre-irradiation properties. Results demonstrate that hadron irradiated devices can be safely operated at a voltage high enough to allow for high efficiency, up to the fluence of 2E15 neq/cm2, beyond the radiation levels (TID and NIEL) expected in the outermost pixel layers of the new ATLAS tracker for HL-LHC.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2018

Charge collection characterisation with the Transient Current Technique of the ams H35DEMO CMOS detector after proton irradiation

This paper reports on the characterisation with Transient Current Technique measurements of the charge collection and depletion depth of a radiation-hard high-voltage CMOS pixel sensor produced at ams AG. Several substrate resistivities were tested before and after proton irradiation with two different sources: the 24 GeV Proton Synchrotron at CERN and the 16.7 MeV Cyclotron at Bern Inselspital.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2018

Performance of CMOS pixel sensor prototypes in ams H35 and aH18 technology for the ATLAS ITk upgrade

Pixel sensors based on commercial high-voltage CMOS processes are an exciting technology that is considered as an option for the outer layer of the ATLAS inner tracker upgrade at the High Luminosity LHC. Here, charged particles are detected using deep n-wells as sensor diodes with the depleted region extending into the silicon bulk. Both analog and digital readout electronics can be added to achieve different levels of integration up to a fully monolithic sensor. Small scale prototypes using the ams CMOS technology have previously demonstrated that it can achieve the required radiation tolerance of $10^{15}~\text{n}_\text{eq}/\text{cm}^2$ and detection efficiencies above $99.5~\%$. Recently, large area prototypes, comparable in size to a full sensor, have been produced that include most features required towards a final design: the H35demo prototype produced in ams H35 technology that supports both external and integrated readout and the monolithic ATLASPix1 pre-production design produced in ams aH18 technology. Both chips are based on large fill-factor pixel designs, but differ in readout structure. Performance results for H35DEMO with capacitively-coupled external readout and first results for the monolithic ATLASPix1 are shown.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2018

Allpix$^2$: A Modular Simulation Framework for Silicon Detectors

Allpix$^2$ (read: Allpix Squared) is a generic, open-source software framework for the simulation of silicon pixel detectors. Its goal is to ease the implementation of detailed simulations for both single detectors and more complex setups such as beam telescopes from incident radiation to the digitised detector response. Predefined detector types can be automatically constructed from simple model files describing the detector parameters. The simulation chain is arranged with the help of intuitive configuration files and an extensible system of modules, which implement separate simulation steps such as realistic charge carrier deposition with the Geant4 toolkit or propagation of charge carriers in silicon using a drift-diffusion model. Detailed electric field maps imported from TCAD simulations can be used to precisely model the drift behaviour of charge carriers within the silicon, bringing a new level of realism to Monte Carlo based simulations of particle detectors. This paper provides an overview of the framework and a selection of different simulation modules, and presents a comparison of simulation results with test beam data recorded with hybrid pixel detectors. Emphasis is placed on the performance of the framework itself, using a first-principles simulation of the detectors without addressing secondary ASIC-specific effects.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2016

Investigations into the impact of locally modified sensor architectures on the detection efficiency of silicon micro-strip sensors

The High Luminosity Upgrade of the LHC will require the replacement of the Inner Detector of ATLAS with the Inner Tracker (ITk) in order to cope with higher radiation levels and higher track densities. Prototype silicon strip detector modules are currently developed and their performance is studied in both particle test beams and X-ray beams. In previous test beam studies of prototype modules, silicon sensor strips were found to respond in regions varying from the strip pitch of 74.5 {\upmu}m. The variations have been linked to local features of the sensor architecture. This paper presents results of detailed sensor measurements in both X-ray and particle beams investigating the impact of sensor features (metal pads and p-stops) on the responding area of a sensor strip.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2015

100ps time resolution with thin silicon pixel detectors and a SiGe HBT amplifier

A 100um thick silicon detector with 1mm2 pad readout optimized for sub-nanosecond time resolution has been developed and tested. Coupled to a purposely developed amplifier based on SiGe HBT technology, this detector was characterized at the H8 beam line at the CERN SPS. An excellent time resolution of (106+-1)ps for silicon detectors was measured with minimum ionizing particles.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2013

Physics at the CLIC e+e- Linear Collider -- Input to the Snowmass process 2013

This paper summarizes the physics potential of the CLIC high-energy e+e- linear collider. It provides input to the Snowmass 2013 process for the energy-frontier working groups on The Higgs Boson (HE1), Precision Study of Electroweak Interactions (HE2), Fully Understanding the Top Quark (HE3), as well as The Path Beyond the Standard Model -- New Particles, Forces, and Dimensions (HE4). It is accompanied by a paper describing the CLIC accelerator study, submitted to the Frontier Capabilities group of the Snowmass process.

hep-ex↗