With government funding, Stathes Paganis has utilized Taiwan’s leading technologies to set up the island’s first silicon detector facility, which has been designated as a production center for next-generation calorimetric particle imaging detectors for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the Euro­pean Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). This program is showcasing Taiwan’s strengths in both software and hardware on the international stage.

The main mission of the Taiwan Instrumentation and Detector Consortium lab at NTU is to test and analyze completed particle detectors.

Fascinated by physics

Inside the 38-meter-tall “moongazing” atrium of National Taiwan University’s Chee-Chun Leung Cosmo­logy Hall, built with a donation from Quanta Computer vice chairman and president C.C. Leung, one has an overwhelming sense of being an integral part of the universe and spacetime. In the four-meter-tall space of his research office, a warmly smiling Stathes Paganis remin­isces about his path to becoming a Taiwanese citizen.

“Taiwan is very much like my homeland.” Paganis, who comes from Greece, speaks fluent Mandarin and can read Chinese too. “Greek parents are just like Taiwanese parents—they hope their children can study a subject that offers good career prospects.” Paganis originally studied electrical engineer­ing, but found the subject dull, so that finishing his undergraduate degree was a chore. But after graduating he attended a three-month summer school in Switzerland, where he came into contact with the LHC program at CERN. He found himself deeply fascin­ated by physics and the vastness of the universe.

The TIDC uses a clean-room environment to produce particle detectors from silicon wafer material.

An excellent academic environment

“This scene depicts the primeval chaos of the universe and the origins of life,” explains Paganis enthusiastically, pointing to the ceiling decoration in a relaxation space he has led us to, his eyes shining with reverence and admira­tion for the universe and life. After gaining his doctorate in particle physics at the University of Texas at Austin in 1999, Paganis went on to do research work at Columbia University in New York and then at the Univer­sity of Wisconsin‡Madison. In 2005 he moved to the University of Sheffield in the UK, where he progressed from lecturer to professor, and over the course of almost a decade of teaching and research work his academic achievements also rose to a new level.

“Taiwan has an excellent academic research environment.” In 2014, Paganis made a major decision, choosing to move his whole family to his wife’s homeland of Taiwan. Beside his teaching duties in the Department of Physics at National Taiwan University (NTU), he heads up the school’s Particle Physics and Particle ­Astrophysics group (PPPA), which was newly established after his ­appointment.

Leading us into a laboratory in NTU’s Astronomy‡Mathematics Building, Paganis points out a high-tech precision instrument and tells us, “The Higgs boson—also known as the ‘God particle’—was detected at CERN in 2012 using a detector like this.” The discovery of the Higgs boson marked a major milestone in the world of physics. With funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), a group of prestigious Taiwanese institutes including Academia Sinica, NTU, National Central University and National Cheng Kung University constructed Taiwan’s first prototype of a similar detector, with all of its components manufactured in Taiwan. The Taiwan Silicon Detector Facility (TSiDF) began operating in March 2019, and in January 2021, under the guidance of MOST, the participating teams together formed the Taiwan Instrumentation and Detector Consortium (TIDC).

After visiting the TSiDF, leading scientists from many countries expressed the hope that it could provide a manu­facturing base for particle tracking detectors for the Pioneering High Energy Nuclear Interaction eXperiment (sPHENIX) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA.

As the initiator of the program, Paganis states that after being designated by the world’s most outstanding experi­mental team—the one running the CMS experiment at CERN—as a manufacturing center for the next generation of calorimetric particle imaging detectors, the TSiDF will supply 5000 sensor modules, and will set up a complete production process for core detector com­ponents, all of which will be done in Taiwan. This is a proud event in the history of Taiwanese science and technology, and is a shared achievement of the Taiwanese teams.

In 2003 Paganis entered CERN, which is head­quartered in Switzerland, to work on the ATLAS experi­ment (­ATLAS: “A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS”), one of the four main ­particle detector experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. In 2014 he joined the CMS experiment, and became deputy chair of the High-Granularity Calori­meter (HGCal) project institution board. His holding this position in an organization involving more than 60 academic institutions around the world was undoubtedly a bridge enabling him to come into contact with Taiwan’s academic community and cutting-edge technology.

A postgraduate student holds a six-inch HGCal sensor module as he discusses an issue with Stathes Paganis (left).

Falling in love

When Paganis was in the US, he spent seven years shuttling between laboratories in New York, Texas and California. A joke that was current among his colleagues at the time still makes him laugh. The laboratories were typically in remote locations with little access to amenities; for example, Brookhaven National Laboratory is in a rural part of Long Island, New York State. Postgraduate students would joke that life there was so dull that to work at BNL was to “Be iN helL.” By comparison, says Paga­nis, “Coming to Taiwan is like living in heaven.”

“In Texas, I met the love of my life.” In a coffee shop run by his brother, Paganis met a student from Taiwan: Liu Yu-ping. It was love at first sight. Through his future wife, he learned about Taiwan.

“There are many similarities between Greece and Taiwan.” Paganis often takes his son out cycling or to the seaside. When they go swimming in the ocean it is as if he were back home in Greece, beside the Aegean Sea. While ­living in the UK, he recounts, “Every year we would take our son back to both Greece and Taiwan.” Both Paganis and his wife set great store by family relationships. To reduce the burden of traveling between three locations, the loving husband Paganis boldly decided to give up his teaching posi­tion in the UK and bring his family to Taiwan. “My wife is Hakka, and she’s a wonderful cook.” As a son-in-law in a Taiwanese family from Qionglin, Hsinchu County, Paganis finds Hakka traditional customs both touching and interesting. A very hospitable person himself, he often invites friends and neighbors to his home to spend time with his family and enjoy his wife’s excellent cooking.

Speaking of Taiwanese foods, Paganis reels off a list of favorites including deep-fried chicken cutlet, stinky tofu with beer, and dry noodles with a platter of pig’s head meat, and says that whenever he goes to Yilan he makes a point of eating the local smoked duck and scallion ­pancakes.

Stathes Paganis’ son, an only child, is doted on by Paganis’ Greek family, as can be seen in the face of the child’s aunt (center). (courtesy of Stathes Paganis)

A son-in-law who loves Taiwan

“I have a Taiwanese ID card. I’m Taiwanese!” Speaking fluent Mandarin, Paganis is proud to be Taiwanese. “Taiwan really does have a lot of strengths compared with other places—you just don’t realize it yet yourselves.” In fact, Paganis decided to settle in Taiwan only after a great deal of in-depth consideration and detailed observation. “The healthcare system and quality of treatment in Taiwan really are outstanding, and the well-­developed transport networks make life very convenient.” Compared with Europe and North America, Taiwan’s lower taxes and fuel prices were also important factors that attracted him. “Taiwan offers a very safe, low-crime living environment too.” The only thing that bothers Paganis is that in recent years air quality has been deterior­ating. “Sometimes it gives me an allergic reaction.”

“Taiwan’s basic education is very good.” Paganis had no qualms about settling his family in Taiwan. His beloved son and only child goes to an ordinary Taiwanese school and is completely integrated into local life. Paga­nis himself, who trains with amateur footballers at weekends, runs happily around the pitch shouting for joy. “What matters in football is team spirit; the same goes for conduct­ing experiments.”

Having traveled halfway around the world, in Taiwan respected particle physicist Stathes Paganis not only educates outstanding students, he has also been able to collaborate with the most outstanding teams, generating boundless research capabilities and working with the govern­ment to create an excellent internationally oriented environ­ment of integration between industry and academia, thus enabling more elite personnel to be happy to remain in Taiwan and pursue their careers here. “I love this land, and I believe tomorrow will be even better,” says Paganis.             

Paganis greatly values family relationships, and takes his son back to Greece to visit relatives every year. (courtesy of Stathes Paganis)

Paganis often takes his son outdoors into the natural world. He feels that Taiwan is similar in many ways to his birthplace, the Greek island of Volos in the Aegean Sea. (courtesy of Stathes Paganis)

The Paganises’ son attends an ordinary school in Taiwan and is fully integrated into local life.

The 38-meter-tall atrium of the Chee-Chun Leung Cosmology Hall at NTU gives one an overwhelming sense of being part of the universe and spacetime.