Breaking News: First Detector Module for the CMS Experiment Rolls off the Production Line

The work in Karlsruhe on the upgrade of the CMS experiment at CERN near Geneva has reached an important milestone today: the first fully functional module for the new CMS tracking detector has left the production line. The new tracking detector will allow the selection of interesting particle tracks in real time for the first time and will make a significant contribution to unlocking further secrets from the smallest building blocks of nature from 2030.

The detector module consists of a double layer of silicon strip sensors and electronics for data readout and transmission. A team of scientists, doctoral researchers and technicians assemble the sensitive components in six high-precision steps. After each step, the detector module is tested inside out. For this purpose, a production line has been set up in a clean room on KIT's North Campus over the last years, which can be used to build up to six modules a day. A single module spends at least eight days in the production line.
Dr. Stefan Maier, who coordinates the work in the clean room: “The first detector module not only shows that we can build functional modules of the highest quality, but also that we have mastered the interaction of all assembly and test steps.”

Up to 2000 of these detector modules will be manufactured at KIT by 2026.