Published by the Communications
and Development Department
1 October 2002
Physicists at the Universities of Canterbury and Auckland are developing
extremely fast, ultra-high-resolution, imaging technology, which could
lead to a new generation of digital X-ray cameras for medical scanning.
The new silicon pixel technology is being developed as part of a
major international programme in fundamental particle physics that
will use high-energy particle collisions to recreate conditions similar
to the early moments of the universe following the ‘Big Bang’
12 to 14 billion years ago.
The international Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is one of
several large-scale experiments to begin in 2007 when the Large Hadron
Collider (LHC), being built at the European Centre for Nuclear and
Particle Research (CERN) in Switzerland, is completed.
CMS has announced that a collaborative team from The Universities
of Auckland and Canterbury is to join the CMS collaboration, involving
about 1870 scientists from 150 institutions spread over 31 countries.
The New Zealand team will join in the development of an advanced
radiation detector, using silicon pixel technology, capable of measuring
the location of atomic fragments produced in collisions occurring
at a rate of 40 million a second.
The device will employ extremely fast, leading-edge electronics to
provide the high-resolution computer read-outs necessary to reconstruct
the high-energy collisions. This will provide physicists with a powerful
probe of the basic physics that governed the early universe.
A spin-off of the CERN collaboration will be the transfer of the
silicon pixel technology to medical scanning. The New Zealand researchers
are being funded by a $337,500 New Economy Research Fund grant over
three years to develop a new generation medical X-ray detector, which
converts conventional X-ray to digital X-ray pictures, and may eventually
make X-ray film obsolete.
The digital X-ray cameras have a promising clinical future because
of their speed, the use of smaller radiation doses to patients, the
ability to enhance images, ease of storage in the computer memory
and compatibility with the Internet.
Dr David Krofcheck, who heads the University of Auckland team, says
the close collaboration with CERN and the pixel research group at
the Paul Scherrer Institute in Zurich will help ensure the transfer
of world-class pixel detector technology into New Zealand.
“This will enable the establishment of a high-energy particle
physics research and instrumentation group in New Zealand, which will
benefit industry as well as young researchers, and we hope provide
momentum for the development of a small silicon industry in New Zealand.”
Professor Phil Butler, head of Physics and Astronomy at Canterbury
University, who leads the Canterbury team, says he is looking forward
to using the detectors in medical imaging work for which the University
and Christchurch Hospital are well-known.
Once the Auckland team has developed functional prototypes using
existing pixel components, the University of Canterbury team will
work with clinicians at Christchurch Hospital to write and trial software
specific to the medical application. The Canterbury team comprises
Professor Butler, Dr Simon Brown and Associate Professor Phil Bones,
all from Canterbury University, and Dr Richard Tremewan, from Christchurch
Hospital.
The researchers say that to be able to recreate the early universe
so many times a second and examine the nature of matter which existed
in the first few microseconds of time after the Big Bang “is
a totally sexy thing for us to study”.
“But right now, there’s also the challenge and excitement
of showing that we can take our device, which has been driven by fundamental
physics, and develop technology which will affect people’s lives.”
Media Inquiries:
Dr Phil Butler
Head of the Department of Physics and Astronomy
Faculty of Science
University of Canterbury
Christchurch
Ph 03 364 2541
Email phil.butler@canterbury.ac.nz
Dr David Krofcheck
Department of Physics
Faculty of Science
The University of Auckland
Tamaki Campus
Ph 64 9 373 7599 Ext. 8385/8848
