Development of a Real-Time, Large Area, High Spatial Resolution Particle Tracker Based on Scintillating Fibers

• Main Authors: D. Lo Presti, D. L. Bonanno, F. Longhitano, C. Pugliatti, S. Aiello, G. A. P. Cirrone, V. Giordano, E. Leonora, N. Randazzo, S. Reito, F. Romano, G. V. Russo, M. Russo, V. Sipala, C. Stancampiano, C. Ventura
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hindawi Limited 2014-01-01
• Series: Advances in High Energy Physics
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/692908
• ISSN: 1687-7357; 1687-7365

The design of a detector for tracking charged particles is presented together with the characterization techniques developed to extract the main design specifications. The goals for the final detector are to achieve real-time imaging performances, a large detection area, and a high spatial resolution, particularly suitable for medical imaging applications. This paper describes the prototype of the tracker plane, which has a 20 × 20 cm2 sensitive area consisting of two crossed ribbons of 500 μm square scintillating fibers. The information about the hit position extracted real-time tracker in an innovative way, using a reduced number of the read-out channels to obtain a very large detection area but with moderate costs and complexity. The performances of the tracker have been investigated using β sources, cosmic rays, and a 62 MeV proton beam.