Development of a fast plastic scintillation detector with time resolution of less than 10 ps

TL;DR

This paper reports the development of a fast plastic scintillation detector achieving a timing resolution below 10 ps, suitable for advanced nuclear physics experiments and Time-Of-Flight systems.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic study of scintillator and photomultiplier combinations, achieving a timing resolution of about 5.1 ps with conventional electronics.

Findings

Achieved timing resolution of 5.1 ps with a 3x1 cm2 detector.

Digitalization with TAC and ADC improves time resolution over TDC.

Simultaneous measurement of time and pulse height aids in time-walk correction.

Abstract

Timing-pick up detectors with excellent timing resolutions are essential in many modern nuclear physics experiments. Aiming to develop a Time-Of-Flight system with precision down to about 10 ps, we have made a systematic study of the timing characteristic of TOF detectors, which consist of several combinations of plastic scintillators and photomultiplier tubes. With the conventional electronics, the best timing resolution of about 5.1 ps ({\sigma}) has been achieved for detectors with an area size of 3x1 cm2. It is found that for data digitalization a combination of TAC and ADC can achieve a better time resolution than currently available TDC. Simultaneously measurements of both time and pulse height are very valuable for correction of time-walk effect.