The neutrino is, by its nature, an elusive particle that requires massive detectors with small backgrounds to capture a handful of events. Nevertheless, neutrino experiments stand at the heart of the current mysteries of particle physics and astrophysics. These include the origin and size of neutrino mass, the existence of additional types of neutrinos, CP violation and the matter--antimatter asymmetry, the amount of metals in the Sun's core, and the existence of non-nuclear energy sources in the Sun. This dissertation concerns the the use of a novel detector technology, the Raghavan Optical Lattice (ROL), in the Low-Energy Neutrino Spectrometer (LENS) and Neutrino Lattice (NuLat) experiments. LENS will measure the solar neutrino luminosity and the Sun's core metallicity using a ROL with indium-loaded liquid scintillator. NuLat will probe the existence of light sterile neutrinos with masses of $ \sim 1\,\mathrm{eV} $ using a ROL made from $ ^{6}\mathrm{Li} $-loaded plastic scintillator. For LENS we present an overview of the experiment and the present the ROL construction results from the LENS R\andD program. In particular we will present results from the micro- and mini-LENS prototypes. For both LENS and NuLat we present the development of an event reconstruction algorithm for ROLs and we apply these to the expected signals for these experiments. For NuLat we present an overview of the experiment including its theory of operation and its sensitivity to sterile neutrino oscillations. Finally, we present work toward the full-sized NuLat detector through bench-top tests and construction of the NuLat demonstrator. / Ph. D.

Over the past 20 years, the detection of neutrino oscillation has reported a lot of important results. The oscillation phenomenon itself has been well proved by various experiments. Some oscillation parameters has been measured and now in the area of precise determination. On the other hand, some new questions like the possibility of the existence of light sterile neutrinos and unexpected 5 MeV bump were raised during the measurement. The Neutrino Lattice Experiment (NuLat) is a detector based on the Raghavan Optical Lattice (ROL). It should be able to offer a compact design of an effective detector with good mobility. It can be extremely useful in the short baseline reactor neutrino oscillation detection community to resolve several confusing issues. In this thesis, we present the calibration results we got from the first active NuLat detector and show what kind of improvements we need for the next version of the NuLat detector based on these results. / Ph. D.