Fiber Array Prototype and Mass Production

Purpose

The purpose of this page is to outline the steps taken to produce a working prototype of the fiber array. This page will be updated as more trials and tribulations occur so that future researchers working on this project will have a solid set of instruction. Most of the improvements on the fabrication techniques could not have been possible with out the work of Carl Nettleton and Sarah and their work is greatly appreciated.

Cleaving

more info coming soon  

Polishing

I have spent the most of my time researching and perfecting the polishing techniques required to yield a fiber of final product quality. Using Carl's photograph from Fiber Array Fabrication Techniques as a bench mark for polish I began my training in fiber grinding with hopes to attain a comparable polish in much less time. Stream lining the production process is the main focus of my efforts concerning the waveguides and scintillators and to do so I am exploring new techniques for polishing.

• • By standardizing the sequence of sandpaper grit we can not only eliminate the variance between nail polish brush manufacturers, but we can also decrease the training time required for new students to learn the polishing techniques.
  • Finer grit sandpaper ( 400, 600, 1500, and 2000 grit made by 3m) has just been brought in and I hope to post new pictures showing the quality of polish for each grade of paper for reference.
  • After researching other experiments using scintillating tubes I found that Jefferson Laboratories uses a plastic polish for their fibers. We will soon test Novus Plastic Polish for its effectiveness in polishing the waveguides and scintillators. Below is a link to the Novus website as well as to the Jefferson Lab website where the information was found.
• http://www.novuspolish.com/
• www.jlab.org/~cecire/share/mparts.doc

Gluing

The first of many trial gluing sessions was completed this week (8/31-9/4) with favorable results. Only three of the eleven fibers broke after curing which is a enormous increase from past attempts. This is attributed to the new gluing station that was designed earlier which allows the glue to stay out of contact with anything but the ends of the fibers. I plan on keeping notes on which of the eleven gluing channels produced successful fibers so that I can determine if there is a slight defect in the alignment of the two fibers.

Painting

New improvements to the painting of the fibers includes the use of an airbrush for a finer distribution of paint. In the past, black spray paint from a can was used with relatively good results. If we are able to reduce the thickness of paint applied to each fiber however, we will reduce the chance of electrons falling into the gaps between fibers.

Assembly

more info coming soon