Russian scientists have developed a hybrid material based on plastic and the rare-earth metal gadolinium. It can be used to manufacture detector shells, with which scientists expect to find dark matter particles in the global international experiment DarkSide-20k.

The study involved scientists at the Dzhelepov Laboratory for Nuclear Problems. V. P. Dzhelepov, the D. I. Mendeleev Russian University of Chemical Technology, the D. V. Skobeltsyn Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, and the Belgorod State National Research University.

The group of scientists was tasked not just to develop a material with specific properties, but to create a technology that would allow scaling up production to the level of commercial production. The goal has been successfully achieved, and the prototypes have passed all the necessary tests.

DarkSide is a global project for the direct search for dark matter particles - wimps (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). These are elementary particles absent from the Standard Model of physics, but predicted by a number of theoretical models beyond its limits. The future DarkSide-20k detector is planned to be launched in 2025-2026 at the underground low-background laboratory Gran Sasso in Italy.