Stanislav Pospíšil

Stanislav Pospíšil received DSc. degree in nuclear and sub-nuclear physics at the Charles University in Prague. In 2009, he was associated as professor of physics to the University of Montreal and in May 2002, he established the CTU Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics (IEAP) where he served as director till September 2015. Stanislav’s research activities before 1990 were focused on neutron nuclear physics and on applied alpha and gamma spectroscopy. After 1990, he developed research links of the CTU physicists and engineers with CERN. Since 1993, he has participated in ATLAS and MoEDAL experiments on LHC. Stanislav also started to be involved in R&D projects at CERN (RD8, RD19, RD48, RD50, Medipix2&3&4) devoted to the development of strip and pixel detectors and their radiation hardness studies. He has built a strong group at the IEAP oriented to application of pixel detectors for high resolution X-ray and neutron imaging and micro-tomography.

- I was invited to join BrightnESS on the basis of my research team’s previous involvement in the FP7 ARDENT and SLHC-PP projects coordinated by CERN. I think that the general awareness on scientific results achieved in the IEAP, both in the field of measurement of composition of mixed radiation field in LHC experiments and, especially, from successful applications of Medipix/Timepix technology with semiconductor sensors for neutron radiography and high resolution tomography, has also played some role. In the project I am the leader of a team of young talented physicists and engineers and I am responsible for the methodical preparation of Task 4.1 experiments and their evaluation.

The participation of the IEAP team in BrightnESS has opened new possibilities for further development of position sensitive neutron detectors with resolution that already reaches the micrometer (nearly nano) scale. From the point of view of scientific future of the young members of our team, I find it equally important that they have gained experience from working in the real scientific international environment within the BrightnESS team.

Within the Task 4.1 we wish to develop Time-of-Flight (ToF) application of Timepix3 neutron detectors with 6LiF and/or 10B converters for measurements with nanosecond resolution. It aims not only i) to experiments with pulsed neutron beams, but also ii) to coincidence operation of multiple Timepix3 detector systems. We also wish to verify the use of large area pixel and strip detectors that achieve resolution at micrometer level. An effort will be also devoted to increase detection efficiency of these detectors, e.g. by using 3D technology, or by improving the S / N ratio by recognition of neutron signal from the background. Finally, we want to increase the radiation resistance of Timepix detector systems to neutrons.

Given the extraordinary and growing importance of neutron beams for studying the structure of a wide range of materials, I have no doubts about the valuable contribution of BrightnESS to neutron research as a whole, especially WP4. Particularly for the efficient use of neutrons supplied to ESS neutron beam experiments, new detector technologies are essential.