Last Thursday, along with most of the STFC Technology and Accelerators Advisory Board (TAAB) I had a tour of RAL Space and RAL Technology Division. Lots of very cool stuff (and in some cases we are talking milli-Kelvin-and-below cool).
Since I intend to be analysing data from it for the next decade or more, it was satisfying to see a stave of the ATLAS Inner Tracking Detector upgrade, and peer through the window at the clean room where the detector is being assembled. Even though this is “my experiment” in one sense, this is the first time I’d seen this. The stave is an array of silicon detectors delicately bonded to their readout electronics. You can find more information here.
Life and Physics 