NIU has been involved in detector R&D using scintillation counters and new types of solid-state photodetectors (like SiPMs or MPPCs) since 2001. Some of the latest results on inviduals cells read out with direct (that is fiberless) coupling are in this NIM paper beta-source tests (2009) and NIM paper proton beam tests (2011) and LCWS talk (2008) .

NIU is also a member of the CALICE collaboration (CAlorimeter for the LInear Collider Experiment) which is developing calorimeters with small readout cell sizes with a goal to improve energy resolutions through the use of particle/energy flow algorithms. Data has beem collected in 2006 and 2007 CERN test beam runs and at Fermilab in 2008. NIU constructed the Tail Catcgher/Muon tracker (TCMT) which is used to measure the energy of hadronic showers after the roughly 5 lambda this ECAL+HCAL.