0000000000505417
AUTHOR
J. Von Kalben
Particle identification with time-of-flight and pulse-shape discrimination in neutron-transmutation-doped silicon detectors
Abstract A method for the identification of energetic charged particles has been investigated based on the employment of pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) in a silicon detector in addition to conventional time-of-flight (ToF) techniques. The method makes use of the fact that, at fixed energy, the particle's velocity, or ToF, is a measure of the particle's mass A while the time structure of the current pulse in a silicon energy detector, used as the ToF stop, permits identification of nuclear charges Z. In the measurements presented here, ToF and PSD methods were applied simultaneously. We used micro-channel plate (MCP) detectors as fast time pick-offs and surface-barrier (SB) n-type Si detec…
Breakthrough in pulse-shape based particle identification with silicon detectors
Identification of charged particles is an important method in nuclear spectroscopy. We have achieved a major breakthrough that makes the pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) method with a single solid-state detector comparable to and sometimes better than the traditional telescope technique. By using rear-side injection in over-biased surface barrier n-type Si detectors made from homogeneously doped n-TD silicon, and extracting the pulse-shape information already at the preamplifier level we have reached improved Z and even A discrimination over a wide dynamic range. Previously good separation with the PSD technique required a major degradation of time resolution and inferior energy resolution.…
Energy distribution of ternaryαparticles in spontaneous fission ofCf252
The energy distribution of the ternary $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ particles in spontaneous fission of $^{252}\mathrm{Cf}$ was measured. For the first time an energy threshold as low as 1 MeV was reached. The experiment used an array of unshielded silicon detectors measuring energy and time-of-flight (TOF) of ternary particles in coincidence with fission fragments. The TOF resolution of the system was sufficient for clear separation of $^{6}\mathrm{He}$ and tritons from $^{4}\mathrm{He}$. The statistics were adequate to extract the $^{6}\mathrm{He}$/$^{4}\mathrm{He}$ yield ratio. For both $^{4}\mathrm{He}$ and $^{6}\mathrm{He}$, an excess in the yield (as compared to a Gaussian shape) was observe…