Advances in Additive Manufacturing of 3D-segmented Plastic Scintillator Detectors for Particle Tracking and Calorimetry

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel additive manufacturing method for creating 3D-segmented plastic scintillator detectors, enabling scalable, cost-effective, and high-performance particle detection for physics experiments.

Contribution

The study introduces an innovative monolithic additive manufacturing process for 3D scintillators, eliminating complex assembly steps and demonstrating comparable performance to traditional methods.

Findings

Prototype with 125 scintillating voxels successfully tested with cosmic rays and CERN beams.

Manufacturing process reduces costs and assembly time significantly.

Detector performance matches traditional scintillators in light yield and crosstalk.

Abstract

Plastic scintillator detectors with three-dimensional granularity and sub-nanosecond time resolution offer simultaneous particle tracking, identification, and calorimetry. However, scaling to larger volumes and finer segmentation poses significant challenges in manufacturing and assembly due to high costs, extensive time, and precision requirements. To address this, the 3DET R\&D collaboration has developed an innovative additive manufacturing approach, allowing for the monolithic fabrication of three-dimensional granular scintillators without the need for additional processing steps. A prototype, featuring a 5 $\times$ 5 $\times$ 5 matrix of optically isolated scintillating voxels integrated with wavelength shifting fibers, was manufactured and tested using cosmic rays and CERN test beams, demonstrating comparable light yield and reduced crosstalk compared to traditional methods. The developed additive manufacturing technique offers a viable, time-efficient, and cost-effective solution for producing next-generation scintillator detectors, maintaining high performance regardless of size and geometric complexity.