Overview of Sensor Module Assembly and Testing for CMS High-Luminosity Upgrade

In the continuing journey toward the High-Luminosity era of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), Barrel Timing Layer Assembly Centers (BACs) for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment have been hard at work. One of the components of the upgrade, the Barrel Timing Layer (BTL) of the Minimum-Ionizing-Particle Timing Detector (MTD), requires over 10,000 so-called Sensor Modules (SMs) to be constructed and tested. Sensor Modules are composed of two silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) attached with room-temperature vulcanized (RTV) glue to a 16-bar LYSO scintillating crystal. The SMs are cured for 24 hours, then tested and ranked based on light yield. They are then incorporated into increasingly complex components of the BTL to serve its goals. The hope is that, through careful assembly, testing, and implementation, the SMs can become the smallest part of an LHC with the capacity to process triple the number of collisions per bunch crossing experienced at the time of this writing. In this talk, I will explore the construction and testing of the SMs at the BAC at the University of Virginia and the function of SMs in the BTL at the LHC. These small components are far from insignificant – they are a critical part of the upgrades which will thrust experimental particle physics into a new age of innovation and discovery.