Silicon pixel detectors are the state-of-the-art for particle tracking and to reconstruct the decay vertices in present collider experiments. In recent years the challenges expected by the imminent High Luminosity upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) at CERN have pushed the development of new detectors that can be at the same time fast, radiation hard and cost effective.
Among others, 3D silicon sensors, Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGADs), and Depleted Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors produced in CMOS technology (CMOS DMAPS), emerged as three of the most promising technologies to meet the requirements for the high luminosity era.
In this talk I will present the latest developments of these silicon detector technologies in the framework of the upgrade of the inner tracker of the ATLAS experiment for the HL-LHC. I will show the results of prototype characterisation at IFAE highlighting performance and limitations of each technology as well as their prospects for future high energy physics experiments.
While all these technologies are born from High Energy Physics, they have the potential for applications in other fields such as photon science and medical applications. At the same time, recent advancements in other fields can provide new ideas for novel detector concepts in HEP. In the end of the talk I will briefly introduce two examples of interdisciplinary projects we are pursuing within the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST) where depleted CMOS detectors with intrinsic charge multiplication are being developed for neuromonitoring, and 2D-materials are investigated to enhance the performance of silicon sensors for tracking.