A new heart for ZEUS

17 January 2001

A new heart for ZEUS

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Silicon wafers present a fascinating pattern in the new "microvertex detector" being built for the ZEUS experiment at the DESY laboratory, Hamburg. ZEUS studies high energy electron-proton collisions at the HERA machine - the world's only electron-proton collider. HERA is currently being upgraded to increase the collision rate by a factor of 5 or so. To take advantage of this improvement a new vertex detector is being installed at the heart of ZEUS, to provide precise measurements of particle tracks, close to the collision point. The detector consists of several "ladders" of silicon wafers divided into tiny "strips" that detect the passage of charged particles. It will consist of two halves that encircle the beam pipe. This image shows the silicon ladders in the first half to be completed, containing 75,000 silicon strips in all. Tests on the improved HERA machine will begin in June 2001, and the experiments should begin collecting data again later in the autumn.

Credit: ZEUS / MVD group NIKHEF

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