A new front-end electronics chain for timing RPCs

Blanco, A Carolino, N Fonte, P Gobbi, A

A. Blanco et al., A new front-end electronics chain for timing RPCs, IEEE NUCL S, 48(4), 2001, pp. 1249-1253

9

INGLESE

Article

Apllied Physucs/Condensed Matter/Materiales Science","Nuclear Emgineering

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NUCLEAR SCIENCE

0018-9499 → ACNP

48

4

2001

1

1249 - 1253

ISI

0018-9499(200108)48:4<1249:ANFECF>2.0.ZU;2-H

Recent advances in electronics and counter construction techniques have pus hed the timing resolution of resistive plate chambers below 50 ps sigma, wi th a detection efficiency of 99% for minimum ionizing particles. In this pa per, we describe a new front-end electronic chain for accurate time and cha rge measurement in these devices. The circuit includes a fast (2.5 GHz) two-stage amplifier based on monolith ic microwave integrated circuits that feeds a fixed threshold discriminator followed by an external time-to-digital converter. The amplified signal is also buffered into an external charge-to-digital converter. All components are commercially available and their number is rather reduced. The system was tested with realistic detector-generated test signals, yield ing a timing resolution around 10 ps sigma for signal charges above 100 fC and a charge resolution of 3.2 fC.