Measurements of ultra-high energy lead ions using silicon and diamond detectors

Carlo Cazzaniga,Maria Kastriotou,Rubén García Alía,Pablo Fernandez-Martinez,Vanessa Wyrwoll,Triestino Minniti,Christopher D Frost

doi:10.1016/j.nima.2020.164671

Abstract

A silicon detector and a diamond detector have been used at the SPS experimental North Area at CERN for diagnostics of beams of ultra-high energy lead ions (150 GeV/nucleon).The detectors are operated in pulse mode using a fast digital electronic chain. The discrimination capability of the two detectors is investigated using deposited energy and pulse shape analysis. It is shown that the detectors have good beam monitoring performances and can discriminate the main lead ion beam component from contamination of light and heavy fragments.

Highlights

The Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), measuring nearly 7 kilometres in circumference, is the second-largest accelerator of the CERN accelerator complex [1]
The SPS accelerator’s main purpose is to feed the ions to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), where collisions are exploited for high energy physics experiments
It has been shown that silicon and diamond detectors with a fast readout electronics chain can be used for the diagnostics of ultra-high energy ion beams such the ones produced by the SPS accelerator at CERN

Summary

Introduction

The Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), measuring nearly 7 kilometres in circumference, is the second-largest accelerator of the CERN accelerator complex [1]. Ion beams are routinely used to test Single Event Effects (SEE) in microelectronics [5], in particular for space and accelerator applications [6,7,8,9], where the electronics needs to operate in elevated radiation fields with a high level of reliability. The main reason for the exploitation of these energies is that test engineers can study the effect of relatively high Linear Energy Transfer (LET) combined with a beam that at the same time is highly penetrating. This fact allows for multiple boards to be stacked one after the other and tested in parallel with a moderate beam attenuation [10]. There is no need to remove the lids and housing of the microchip, operations that can be difficult if not impossible on systems that are highly compact and integrated, or with 3D structures

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion