Saint-Gobain Crystals has a long history supporting research in High Energy Physics and providing radiation detection solutions to Space Science Research missions. Detection solutions are custom engineered to meet the sensitive and critical operating and performance requirements such as detectors for High Energy Physics and Space Science Research.

Saint-Gobain Crystals has provided scintillation detectors and materials for space missions such as:

BeppoSAX (1996), Lunar Prospector (1998), Mars Odyssey (2001), ESA INTEGRAL (2002), Mercury Messenger (2004), ASTRO-E2 (2005), Curiosity Mars Rover (2011), CALET Calorimetric Electron Telescope (2015)

and been involved in major Nuclear Physics programs to provide the BGO anti-compton shields such as:

EUROGAM, EUROBALL, GASP, GAMMASPHERE.

HECTOR (High Efficiency Total absorption spectrometer)

HECTOR is a NaI(Tl) detector developed at the Nuclear Science Laboratory (NSL) at the University of Notre Dame. It is an array of 16 crystals, each 4x8x8 inch in size. Each crystal is contained in aluminum housing and read by two photomultipliers. The crystals are arranged in a frame to form a cube 16x16x16 inch with a 60mm borehole in the center for beam pipe and target. The size of the detector ensures high detection efficiency even for high-energy gamma rays and allows for measurements of the cross-section as low as 10 μb.

According to Anna Simon, University of Notre Dame Assistant Professor, the high efficiency of the detector makes it a great tool for measurement of proton and alpha capture reactions that occur in explosive stellar environments where heavy nuclei are produced.

Saint-Gobain Crystals engineering and assembly teams were faced with two major challenges:

• One challenge was the shape of each individual detector itself. In order to create the central bore-hole in the array (mentioned below), a radius had to be cut out from one corner of each of the 16 individual crystals.  This required special milling set-ups that were achieved by our expert machining team. In addition, the housings and other hardware had to be designed to match this peculiar shape.
• The second was the requirement of minimum cushioning around individual crystals, in order to maximize performance. Extreme handling care had to be taken throughout the process of assembling and transporting the array, to prevent any damage to the crystals or the electronics.