Project Goal:

Development and realization of a high-frame rate multi-pixel tracking and imaging detector based on digital silicon photomultipliers with high timing resolution and hit-counting capability for applications at high-energy physics and photon science.

Partners:

• DESY-ATLAS

Project Status:

• Hybrid approach, completed in 2018, partners: MPG-HLL, DESY-FTX
• Monolithic approach, running

A detector system using digital silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) sensors is currently under development for future applications in high-energy physics and photon science. The current prototype belongs to the category of monolithic active pixel sensors and was fabricated in LFoundry’s 150-nm CMOS technology. It benefits from the available single-photon avalanche diode microcells. Four microcells are connected in parallel to the quenching and readout electronics (pixel). The device comprises 32-by-32 pixels at 70-µm pitch. Additional peripheral circuit blocks include fast and combinatorial triggers, 16-by-16 pixel block-wise time-to-digital converters with 100-ps timing precision, and fast serializers. The chip enables full hit matrix readout and time stamp measurements with MHz-frame rate capability. It is possible to turn off noisy pixels and to count hits pixel-wise.

The current readout system is based on Caribou, a versatile readout system for fast and simple implementation of new detectors.