Dual Cherenkov and Scintillation Response to High-Energy Electrons of Rare-Earth Doped Silica Fibers

The investigation of the characteristic luminescent response of Ce-doped silica bers under exposure
to electrons in the 20 - 200 GeV energy range is reported in this work, in order to explore the feasibility
to employ silica-based bers for a simultaneous dual-readout approach. The sol-gel method
allows to prepare either doped or undoped bers with high aspect-ratio and good purity, providing
good flexibility and spatial resolution for the realization of a dual-readout detector. The dual
Cherenkov and scintillation light emitted by silica-based bers potentially o ers applications in highenergy
physics calorimetry as well as in other di erent elds, like radiation monitoring in medicine,
security, and industrial controls. The response of the bers, embedded in a tungsten-copper absorber
block to obtain a Spaghetti-like geometry in a high-energy physics environment, has been
investigated through a test beam campaign at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) facility.
The discrimination of Cherenkov and scintillation light is demonstrated and discussed, along with
a detailed investigation of the scintillation properties of the material: time-resolved spectroscopy,
relative light output, and attenuation length are evaluated. The results presented in this study can
pave the way for further material engineering and future applications.