MIT Kavli Institute Directory

Ian T. Counts

Graduate Student, Physics Student

Affiliations:MIT Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute

While an undergraduate at Stanford, I worked on data analysis for EXO-200, a zero-neutrino double-beta decay experiment under Prof. Giorgio Gratta. I then began construction of a direct dark matter experiment using EXO-200's avalanche photodiodes. I am now a first-year graduate student in the lab of Professor Enectali Figueroa at MIT.

Research interests:

I work on Micro-X, a NASA-funded mission that aims to test a new technology in the field of X-ray astronomy, the use of ultracold microcalorimeters. Ultracold microcalorimeters have an advantage over traditional CCDs, offering unprecedented energy resolution imaging of diffuse astronomical sources like supernova remnants. The lab of Professor Enectali Figueroa has used microcalorimeters to build a working X-ray telescope, which is ready for integration with a NASA sounding rocket, to be launched into near-space in Summer 2013.

Representative publications:

Xenon purity analysis for EXO-200 via mass spectrometry • Submitted to Nucl. Instr. Meth. Phys. Res. (2011) Observation of two-neutrino double-beta decay in Xe-136 with EXO-200 • Submitted to Phys. Rev. Letters (2011) A Xenon gas purity monitor for EXO • Submitted to Nucl. Instr. Meth. Phys. Res. (2011) A magnetically-driver piston pump for ultra-clean applications • Submitted to Rev. Sci. Inst. (2011)