{"data":{"id":2026,"lang":"en","title":"Swiss Physicists Build a Camera That Films Invisible Particles Like Neutrinos in 3D","summary":"ETH Zurich and EPFL scientists built PLATON, a single-block particle detector that uses a light-field camera and AI to track neutrinos and dark matter candidates in 3D, replacing millions of wired components.","category":"science","category_label":"Science","published_at":"2026-07-18T06:01:43Z","updated_at":"2026-07-18T06:01:43Z","url":"https://techtools.cz/tools/news/article/2026-swiss-physicists-build-a-camera-that-films-invisible-particles-like-neutrinos","api_url":"https://techtools.cz/news-api/v1/articles/2026?lang=en","markdown_url":"https://techtools.cz/news-api/v1/articles/2026.md?lang=en","image_url":"https://www.sciencedaily.com/images/1920/neutrinos-interaction-camera.webp","word_count":198,"reading_time_minutes":1,"sources":[{"url":"https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260716023610.htm","domain":"sciencedaily.com"},{"url":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-70918-x","domain":"nature.com"}],"translation":{"lang":"cs","id":2099,"title":"Švýcarští fyzici sestrojili kameru, která ve 3D natáčí neviditelné částice jako neutrina","url":"https://techtools.cz/tools/news/clanek/2099-svycarsti-fyzici-sestrojili-kameru-ktera-ve-3d-nataci-neviditelne-castice-jako","api_url":"https://techtools.cz/news-api/v1/articles/2099?lang=cs"},"content":"Researchers at ETH Zurich and EPFL have unveiled PLATON, a new type of particle detector that reconstructs the 3D paths of neutrinos and other weakly interacting particles using a single block of light-producing material instead of millions of tiny wired components.\n\nThe device, described by PhD student Till Dieminger, Dr. Saul Alonso-Monsalve, Professor Davide Sgalaberna and Professor Edoardo Charbon, combines a light-field (plenoptic) camera with single-photon avalanche diode sensors and a transformer-based neural network. The camera captures both the intensity and direction of scintillation light produced when a particle passes through the block, letting AI software reconstruct its track even from as few as five detected photons. In prototype tests on a 10x10x10 cm block, PLATON achieved sub-millimeter spatial resolution; simulations suggest a full cubic-meter version could still resolve tracks to a few millimeters.\n\nLegacy detectors like Japan's T2K experiment need roughly 2 million individual scintillator cubes wired with electronics to achieve similar 3D tracking. Replacing that wall of hardware with one monolithic block and a camera could make future neutrino and dark-matter experiments cheaper to build and easier to scale up. The work, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, was published July 17 in Nature Communications."}}