Aluminium foil supporting solar particle research around Mars

Understanding the flow of energetic particles around Mars is critical for space weather monitoring, spacecraft design, and future planetary missions.

In a 2025 study published in IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, researchers describe a compact particle detection approach designed to operate in the Martian space environment, using laboratory testing that included high-purity aluminium foil supplied by Advent Research Materials.

The paper focuses on pulse-shape analysis for solar energetic particle discrimination, tested as part of the SP@M (Solar Particles @ Mars) instrument.

Organisations involved in the study
This study was carried out by researchers including authors affiliated with IRAP (Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology), CNRS and Artenum. 
The work relates to the SP@M (Solar Particles @ Mars) instrument, described as part of the M-MATISSE mission payload.

What the research is about
The team tested a compact way to measure solar energetic particles around Mars, including electrons and ions. Instead of using a stack of detectors, the SP@M concept relies on a single 1.5 mm thick silicon detector and uses pulse-shape analysis to help distinguish particle types.

How particle separation works
When a particle deposits energy in silicon, it creates an electrical pulse. The researchers analyse the rise time of that pulse. Rise time changes depending on where the energy is deposited and how charge is collected in the detector.

Advent’s role in the test setup
In the experimental work, the authors state they used an aluminium degrader made from 20 ± 2 µm aluminium foil, with 99.2% purity (Reference AL1005)

They note the foil thickness provides a near-continuous range of alpha particle energies for testing.
 

Key findings reported in the abstract

• Irradiation side matters. Ohmic-side irradiation produced longer and more spread rise times, improving separation.
• For deposited energies above ~600 keV, electrons and alpha particles were clearly separated.
• Below that threshold, overlap limited separation with their 4.0 ns sampling.

Request the paper
Pulse-Shape Analysis for Solar Energetic Particle Discrimination around Mars
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science (January 2025)
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/11270966
DOI: 10.1109/TNS.2025.3637888