Progress towards barium daughter tagging in $Xe^{136}$ decay using single molecule fluorescence imaging

The existence of Majorana Fermions has been predicted, and is of great interest as it may be related to the asymmetry between matter and anti-matter particles in the universe. However, the search for them has proven to be a difficult one. Neutrino-less Double Beta decay (NLDB) offers a possible opportunity for direct observation of a Majorana Fermion. The rate for NLDB decay may be as low as $\approx 1 $ $count/ton/year$. Current detector technologies have background rates between $4$ to $ 300$ $count/ton/year/ROI$ which is much larger than the universal goal of $0.1$ $count/ton/year/ROI$ desired for ton-scale detectors. The premise of my research is to develop new detector technologies that will allow for a background-free experiment. My current work is to develop a sensor that will tag the daughter ion $ Ba^{++}$ from the $Xe^{136}$ decay. The development of a sensor that is sensitive to single barium ion detection based on the single molecule fluorescence imaging technique is the major focus of this work. If successful, this could provide a path to a background-free experiment.