Design and test of scintillating tiles or strips with large active area suitable for large area detectors

Test stands to study the response and timing properties of plastic scintillator bars read out with SiPMs, and to investigate the potential for gamma-neutron separation of different plastic scintillator materials have been constructed and commissioned.

The design of a detector based on plastic scintillator tiles was completed. The detector module is composed by a 3x5 matrix of 225 cm² tiles. The light readout of each tile is achieved by 4 Silicon Photomultipliers directly coupled to the scintillator. A dedicated fast front end electronics is integrated onto the tile. The detector module can be used as a standalone unit or can be replicated in order to cover large areas. The performance of the scintillator tiles has been verified. A time resolution of 300 ps, light yield of 230 photo-electrons for a MIP and an efficiency better than 99.8% were achieved.