Vendula Šubert

My CV

My specialty is neutronics and silicon detector physics. In short: I work with instruments that catch particles, and study what happens to them when we irradiate them.

In recent years I’ve focused on how radiation damages silicon detectors. When a high-energy particle — a proton, say — hits the material, it leaves behind complex defects in the silicon that behave differently than any of the models available would predict. During my PhD (which I haven’t finished yet) at the University of Hamburg, I looked for better ways to describe these effects. I mainly tested silicon detectors — a technology that matters not just at CERN, but also in space research, and that image sensors are built on too.

In my research I combined computer simulations with lab experiments. I simulate in Geant4 and TRIM/SRIM, write my own code in Python and C++, and then check everything against measurements — using methods like CV-IV, TCT, DLTS, and TSC (essentially different ways of “knocking on” a detector to find out what’s going on inside it). What I enjoy most is that range: from theory, through code, to the instrument I get my hands dirty on.

Before CERN, I worked at the European Spallation Source (ESS) in Sweden on developing a neutron beam monitor — from the first idea through design, calibration, and testing to the publication of a working prototype. The monitor was essentially a piece of vanadium metal surrounded by four helium detectors. The principle was simple: vanadium reacts with only a very small fraction of neutrons, so the beam itself stayed almost undisturbed, while the helium detectors caught the neutrons that bounced off the vanadium. I designed it, worked out the electronics, measured the detector on real beams, and published it to ESS as one of the possible technologies.

At ESS and Lund University I learned not just physics, but also how to install and maintain Linux systems with custom drivers for detector electronics, how to set up radiation monitoring, and how to travel between European labs debugging hardware under time pressure. In short: I can figure things out, even when it’s not in the manual.

Technical skills

Simulations & computing: Geant4, TRIM/SRIM, Python, C++

Experimental techniques: CV-IV, TCT, DLTS, TSC, measurements with radioactive sources and at neutron beamlines

Hardware: detector design and construction, neutron beam monitors, soldering, welding, hands-on manual and lab work

Systems: Linux (CentOS, Ubuntu), test-infrastructure administration, Windows, Mac

Science communication: CERN guide (public tours), popular-science talks

One concrete result

At the European Spallation Source, I designed a vanadium-based neutron beam monitor and took it from concept through calibration and testing to first-author publication in Physical Review Accelerators and Beams.

Publications

I originally published under the name V. Maulerova. After I got married, I also have publications under the names V. Maulerova-Subert and Vendula Šubert.

Detector test with colleagues at the Source Testing Facility (Lund, Sweden) Detector test with colleagues at the Source Testing Facility (Lund, Sweden).

ORCID: 0000-0002-2791-0659

Journal articles

Conference proceedings & talks

Theses

Technical deliverables