Silicon detectors developed at the Institute of Electron Technology confirm the existence of element 117 The search for artificially created atoms of the element with atomic number 117 conducted at the accelerator centre in Darmstadt, Germany, has ended in great success. Silicon strip detectors developed at the Institute of Electron Technology in Warsaw have played an important part in the search.



Evidence confirming the existence of the element with atomic number 117 has been obtained at the Centre for Heavy Ion Research (GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH) in Darmstadt. A team of 72 physicists, chemists and engineers from 11 countries, including Poland, have contributed to this achievement, which has been described in the prestigious scientific journal "Physical Review Letters". Silicon strip detectors developed and fabricated at the Instytut Technologii Elektronowej (ITE) in Warsaw made it possible to observe nuclear particles indicating the presence of atoms of the new element.
Silicon charged-particle detectors developed and fabricated at the Institute of Electron Technology in cooperation with the Institut für Radiochemie - Technische Universität München and the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH (Darmstadt) were designed specifically for the Focal Plane Detector Box (FPDB) for the TASCA (TransActinide Separator and Chemistry Apparatus) separator at GSI.

The FPDP consists of three different detector setups manufactured at ITE. The main one is called the "stop detector". There are also auxiliary detectors: the first set registers particles reflected from the stop detector, the next registers light ions which were able to pass through the stop detector.


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