Shortly after I arrived in Stockholm, Sweden for my exchange year at KTH, I started working with Dr. Mats Persson. The research group, led by Dr. Mats Danielson, works on developing x-ray detectors for CT scanners. My project began as an exploratory study with a wide scope until I narrowed down and focused on the development of a module for the Allpix Squared simulation framework. The other aspects became Bachelor’s theses for some other students, with whom I collaborated extensively.

My goal was to integrate Coulomb repulsion into the Monte-Carlo simulations in Allpix. This bridges the gap between the fast independent charge carrier simulations and the intensive TCAD electric field simulations that can take many days to run. I needed to do a complete overhaul of the existing propagation module to allow for synchronous charge positions. Once I completed this milestone, I was able to add a component to the electric field corresponding to the mirror charge solution to the electric field in a capacitor.

In order to prepare my code for integration into the open-source project, I needed to be a lot more rigourous with my git usage and documentation. Currently, the project exists as a pull request on the Github repository. It has also been used by grad students in our group for their simulations. In April 2024, I got the chance to fly out to Amsterdam for the annual Allpix Squared workshop. Alongside Rickard Brunskog, a PhD student who has become the main user of my module, I presented my work to many collaborators, developers, and users of the Allpix framework (link to our slides). It was an amazing opportunity to talk with other working in high energy detector design and the friendly community has played a part in convincing me that graduate school is where I want to be after I finish my Bachelor’s from Cal Poly.