Measurements of an AC-LGAD strip sensor with a 120 GeV proton beam

TL;DR

This paper presents the first characterization of an AC-LGAD strip sensor with a 120 GeV proton beam, demonstrating its potential for high-resolution 4D particle detection.

Contribution

It introduces the first experimental results of an AC-LGAD sensor with a proton beam, showing its comparable time resolution and fine segmentation capabilities.

Findings

Time resolution comparable to standard LGADs

Effective segmentation with fine pitches

High efficiency in particle detection

Abstract

The development of detectors that provide high resolution in four dimensions has attracted wide-spread interest in the scientific community for several applications in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, medical imaging, mass spectroscopy as well as quantum information. In addition to high time resolution and thanks to the AC-coupling of the electrodes, LGAD silicon sensors can provide high resolution in the measurement of spatial coordinates of an incident minimum ionizing particle. Such AC-coupled LGADs, also known as AC-LGADs, are therefore considered as candidates for future detectors to provide 4-dimensional measurements in a single sensing device with 100$\%$ fill factor. This article presents the first characterization of an AC-LGAD sensor with a proton beam of 120 GeV momentum at Fermilab. The sensor consists of strips with 80 $\mu$m width, fabricated at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The signal properties, efficiency, spatial, and time resolution are presented. The experimental results show that the time resolution of such an AC-LGAD is compatible to standard LGADs with similar gain, and that AC-LGADs can be segmented with fine pitches as standard strip or pixel detectors.