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Apprentice Projects 2024

Electronics Technology (ET)

TGL Ruud Kluit

Highlights 2024

  • ATLAS/FELIX DAQ system design is continuing in phase II. The Nikhef ET team contributes to the fast data transport, test features and emulators of the periphery, and firmware coordination of the development team. New hardware developed by the international team is successfully under test in the DAQ test system at Nikhef.
  • Fast timing project:
    • For the upgrade of the LHC/ALICE Inner Tracker system (ITS3),  prototype circuits have been tested and will be completed for integration in the final Pixel chip; this continues in 2024. This uses 65nm MAPS IC technology.
    • A start has been made in circuit design for a 28nm CMOS IC for LHC/LHCb VELO application. This will be a prototype chip, and will not have all features. But critical circuits like timing PLL/DLL’s and a DAC circuit have been prototyped and will be tested in 2024.
  • Senseis project: For seismic background noise measurements that are required for Gravitational Wave experiments a special MEMS sensor with control electronics was designed and used to test the latest MEMS sensor with ASIC. The ASIC demonstrates good functionality (after 4 critical iterations) and very promising results. Further tests in 2024, with the MEMS in vacuum, should give more detailed information for the next design iteration.
  • As a generic R&D activity, the time-synchronization system called “White-Rabbit” (WR) was developed further. This includes methods for absolute timing calibration and work is ongoing for IEEE standardization. A small WR node, “BabyWR” has been developed and tested, and an improved version for final use.
    This new WR development was started to implement this technology in Virgo (upgrade) and ETpathfinder. Boards are in production and 40 WR systems will be built in 2024.
  • Km3net: production of Digital optical modules (DOM’s), and the integration of Detection Units (DU’s) with 18 DOM’s has continued during 2024.
    Also the final steps in the production of the White-Rabbit switch that will be implemented in the phase II network of km3net are realized and pre-production has started. For phase II, the WR timing synchronization will then be further implemented in the Km3Net experiment.
    The full WR implementation in Km3net requires changes in the optical network, which has been designed and tested.
  • For Virgo a start is made for the design of new quadrant photodiode readout electronics.
  • ETpathfinder requires many infrastructure and cable support designs, as well as inside vacuum as outside, but then in the cleanroom environment. Many support activities have been carried out in that area by the ET. department.
  • New electronics were designed for Ptolomy, where extremely small RF signals need to be detected (~26 GHz). The first prototype board demonstrated very good performance and is a good starting point for continuation of the design of more challenging sensing (RF) electronics that is required for this experiment. It requires new special design techniques and very advanced RF test and measurement equipment for verification of the electronics.
  • LISA: in the ET EMC chamber, RF tests are being performed on newly designed housing of special electronics that must be installed in the future LISA experiment. This work is done in collaboration with SRON. The actual measurements were done by Nikhef engineers and continued over 2023.
  • For the readout of MediPix and TimePix chips, the SPidr system is further developed, and also produced in larger quantities to be used by other institutes.
    The multi-lane 10Gbps links are still in development to be used over several PCB’s, where signal integrity will be studied and optimized.

Mechanical Technology (MT)

TGL Patrick Werneke

Highlights 2022

  • LHCb Vertex Locator (VELO):
    • Installation of the VELO detectors at CERN.
  • ATLAS Strip Endcap (ITk):
    • Endcap components machined and delivered  to Nikhef: wheels, stiffener disk, service trays;
    • Assembly of the 1st Endcap structure almost complete;
    • Welding and manufacturing of the cooling manifolds well underway and a large portion of them has been done;
    • Assembly of the capillary test station from CERN  for CERN done and to be shipped in the beginning of 2023.
    • Atlas ITk 1/6th system test finished, shipped to DESY and assembled.
  • ETpathfinder:
    • All six 5-6m tall vacuum towers have been installed and found to be leak-tight after testing;
    • The first deliveries of the internal mechanics have arrived. These will be precision cleaned and installed in the UHV environment inside the vacuum towers in 2023;
    • Several prototypes were built and tested or are being tested:
      • The prototype of the large Geometric Anti-Spring (GAS) filter has been installed at Nikhef. Tuning of the filter blades will happen in 2023;
      • A prototype of the so-called “Movable masses” has been made. This component allows one to shift the center of mass of the suspended optical table, giving us the ability to adjust the (static) tilt of the table;
      • A partial prototype of the “Bench locking mechanism” has been made and assembled at Nikhef. This “joystick-like” part of the mechanism allows the user to intuitively position the optical table in 3 in-plane DOFs simultaneously with 2 hands;
  • LISA
    • The EMI shielding performance has been tested, however this showed that the performance was not sufficient yet. This was an important, but expected, indication that EMC was a critical design variable. Several sub prototypes have been produced and tested at Nikhef, improving the EMI shielding step by step with minimal compromise on stability performance and alignment requirements. The performance has increased significantly and we will continue…
    • The thermally-stable housing/second prototype including electronics has been designed and produced, for which tests will be performed in 2023. A Rasnik set-up has been designed and is currently in production to verify the stability requirements of this prototype while applying vibrational and thermal loads;
    • We have started with designing the final prototype, which should meet all the requirements. Though we do consider the possibility that not all requirements will be met at once, such that a redesign is expected. Though we are on schedule to meet the technical readiness level 6 out of 9 in 2023.

Computing Technology (CT)

TGL Ronald Starink

Highlights 2024

  • Completion of works following the renovation of the building. This included supervision of the installation of audio/video infrastructure in meeting rooms, installation of the wifi infrastructure to support large numbers of wifi clients in the central part of the building, and supporting the infrastructure in the new expostrip.
  • Migration of all Linux computers running the CentOS 7 distribution, which reached its end of life, to either Alma Linux, Rocky Linux or Debian. This affected the vast majority of all Linux machines in the institute, servers and desktops.
  • Total replacement of the compute and storage hardware, as well as the software, for the isolated course environment.
  • Upgrade of a new system for keeping backups of laptops.
  • Advising the directorate team on a new schema for mobile electronics work facilities. The new advice focuses on facilitating a flexible workspace with attention for sustainability in the life cycle of equipment.
  • Successfully held 10 CT office hours, enabling end users of the computer infrastructures to casually sit down with computing experts to discuss their compute-related challenges.
  • Organization and hosting of the International HTCondor workshop (https://indico.cern.ch/event/1386170/). In addition, two local HTCondor satellite hands-on workshops were held as well at Utrecht University and Nikhef.
  • Releasing the HADRON (djeHuty Archival Data Repository Op Nikhef) system for usage to end users. The system is Nikhef’s tool for managing research data.
  • Organization of a Research Data Management course to instruct junior scientists how to set up a research data management plan and make use of the HADRON system for archiving data and software (within open standards).
  • Migration of the local compute cluster to the HTCondor system to manage High Throughput workloads and computing capacity.
  • Consolidation of the Ganymede cluster for the Gravitational Waves group, improving user experience.
  • Setup of an archiving tool for seismic data for the Einstein Telescope project.
  • Installation of a new cluster named “Vuurpijl”.
  • Contribution to the proposed move towards Grand Unified Token profiles, a new standard combining the strength of three existing authentication/authorization solutions.
  • Participation in the AARC Technical Revision to Enhance Effectiveness (AARC TREE) project that aims to further integrate research infrastructures using federated access.
  • Software engineering work to improve the functionality and stability of the Finesse simulation software for interferometers.
  • Work on a White Rabbit-based software system to control the timing output of 10 or 100 MHz of the Virgo Demonstrator boxes.