Demonstrating a single-block 3D-segmented plastic-scintillator detector

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel, cost-effective design for 3D granular plastic scintillator detectors using a single-block assembly of pre-made cubes, potentially accelerating construction for large-scale neutrino experiments.

Contribution

The paper presents a new detector design that simplifies assembly by gluing pre-produced scintillator cubes into a single block, reducing construction time and costs.

Findings

Efficiently glued 1 cm^3 scintillator cubes into a single block.

Potential for rapid, scalable detector construction.

Relevance for next-generation neutrino experiments.

Abstract

Three-dimensional finely grained plastic scintillator detectors bring many advantages in particle detectors, allowing a massive active target which enables a high-precision tracking of interaction products, excellent calorimetry and a sub-nanosecond time resolution. Whilst such detectors can be scaled up to several-tonnes, as required by future neutrino experiments, a relatively long production time, where each single plastic-scintillator element is independently manufactured and machined, together with potential challenges in the assembly, complicates their realisation. In this manuscript we propose a novel design for 3D granular scintillator detectors where O($1~\text{cm}^3$) cubes are efficiently glued in a single block of scintillator after being produced via cast polymerization, which can enable rapid and cost-efficient detector construction. This work could become particularly relevant for the detectors of the next-generation long-baseline neutrino-oscillation experiments, such as DUNE, Hyper-Kamiokande and ESSnuB.