Development of a Cable Checkout Board for the SuperCDMS Experiment

Dark matter is an invisible form of matter that is inferred from its gravitational effects on visible objects to account for 85% of the matter in the universe. One of the leading hypotheses of the nature of dark matter is that it is composed of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). The Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS) experiment is designed to search for WIMPs that elastically scatter off of nuclei. We present the results of a research and development project to check SuperCDMS readout cables for possible defects before deployment.

Readout cables enable communication between the cryogenic detectors and the warm electronic system that controls, monitors and processes signals. SuperCDMS utilizes approximately 30 pairs of readout cables, each of which consists of 100 wires. A specialized cable checkout device will identify circuit shorts and breaks in a time-efficient manner before their deployment in a cryostat where a defect could impact the acquired data. This presentation describes the different stages of the research and development process, including background research of electronics used in the experiment, printed circuit board design and manufacturing, hardware testing and software development.