Dan Dwyer (the head of the neutrino physics group in Berkeley Lab’s Physics Division) and Carl Grace (a staff scientist and engineer in the Engineering Division), and their team’s development of the LArPix and Hydra I/O systems, are featured in this new article from LBNL Research News.

Berkeley Lab has revolutionized science with the development of “first-of-its-kind” scientific tools that have often accelerated, and sometimes even changed the trajectory of science. Lab scientists continue to develop new tools in service of their own research, and then realize that the tools themselves may be valuable to other researchers.

In 2018, their team designed a novel 3D liquid argon particle detector using the LArPix (Liquid Argon Pixel) system for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) project. They also developed the Hydra I/O system, which has an added a software layer on top of the existing circuitry that reroutes around any failed components, which allows the software to automatically reconfigure the data path in order to avoid a failed chip without compromising the overall network. This innovation won an R&D 100 award in 2022, the team is considering adapting it for other experiments.

Read the full article:
Revolutionizing Science with First-of-its-Kind Scientific Tools at the Lab 
September 20, 2023 / Ruby Barcklay / LBNL Research News