Explore the vast range of titles available.

Among various silicon sensor technologies, 3D silicon sensors demonstrate significant potential for applications requiring exceptional radiation hardness and intrinsic high time resolutions. Silicon pixel sensors with columnar-type electrodes are already operational within the ATLAS experiment, serving in the previous Inner B-Layer (IBL) and the upcoming Inner Tracking (ITk) detectors. Concurrently, advancements driven by the next-generation LHCb VELO detector have led to the development of fast-timing 3D trench sensors within the INFN TimeSPOT project, achieving intrinsic time resolutions close to 10 ps. Remarkably, this performance is sustained even under irradiation levels far exceeding the expected limits for High Luminosity LHC operations. Despite these advantages, 3D trench sensors face challenges related to fabrication, as their production yields remain lower than those of the well-established columnar-type sensors. This highlights the necessity of designing a timing-optimized 3D sensor that leverages the robustness of a columnar electrode fabrication while achieving an intrinsic time resolution as close as possible to the trench-based designs. The design study addressed in this paper aimed to computationally compare the already designed and characterised TimeSPOT 3D trench sensor with alternative columnar electrode-based geometries, focusing particularly on configurations that approximate trench electrodes using parallel-oriented columnar designs. Different geometries and pixel sizes were designed, simulated, and compared. This work presents the entire design and selection effort as well as the preliminary layout of the selected pixel geometries, which are set to feature in FBK’s upcoming production run in 2025.

LHCb is one of the four main experiments running at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Since 2010, it has been collecting data to study the Physics of b and c quarks. For the past three years, the experimental apparatus underwent significant upgrades to be ready for a new round of data collection, expected to start in June 2022. The new apparatus is designed to be able to run at an instantaneous luminosity five times larger than the previous one, which was 2.0×1032 cm−2s−1, and the whole detector readout will be at a 40 MHz rate. It is worth noticing that the luminosity at the LHCb interaction point, for the characteristics of the detector, needs to be reduced with respect to the luminosity provided by LHC. Major changes in the different subdetectors were required, along with complete modifications of the trigger schemes. The LHCb collaboration is developing and studying different methods for the on-line measurement of luminosity at the LHCb impact point, crucial for the monitoring of correct machine operation and for most experimental physics studies. The present work describes a procedure based on hit counting in the muon detector for an on-line luminosity monitor. The performance and the precision achieved with this method in tests carried out on past data collected are presented, together with proposals for future upgrades.

This paper describes the fundamental timing properties of a single-pixel sensor for charged particle detection based on the 3D-trench silicon structure. We derive the results both analytically and numerically by considering a simple ideal sensor and the corresponding fast front-end electronics in two different case scenarios: ideal integrator and real fast electronics (trans-impedance amplifier). The particular shape of the Time of Arrival (TOA) distribution is examined and the relation between the time resolution and the spread of intrinsic charge collection time is discussed, by varying electronics parameters and discrimination thresholds. The results are obtained with and without simulated electronics noise. We show that the 3D-trench sensors are characterized by a \\(synchronous~region\\), i.e. a portion of the active volume which leads to the same TOA values when charged particles cross it. The synchronous region size is dependent on the front-end electronics and discrimination threshold, and the phenomenon represents an intrinsic physical effect that leads to the excellent time resolution of these sensors. Moreover, we show that the TOA distribution is characterized by an intrinsic asymmetry, due to the 3D geometry only, that becomes negligible in case of significant electronics jitter.

Solid state sensors having timing capabilities are becoming an absolute need in particle tracking techniques of future experiments at colliders. In this sense, silicon sensors having 3D structure are becoming an interesting solution, due to their intrinsic speed and radiation resistance. A characteristic of such devices is the strict dependence of their performance on their geometric structure, which can be widely optimised by design, thus requiring suitable tools for an accurate modeling of their behaviour. This paper illustrates the development, performance and use of the TCoDe simulator, specifically dedicated to the fast simulation of carrier transportation phenomena in solid state sensors. Some examples of its effectiveness in the design and analysis of 3D sensors is also given.

Detectors based on pixels with timing capabilities are gaining increasing importance in the last years. Next-to-come high-energy physics experiments at colliders require the use of time information in tracking, due to the expected levels of track densities in the foreseen experimental conditions. A promising solution to gain high-resolution performance at the sensor level is given by so-called 3D silicon sensors. The excellent intrinsic time resolution of a special case of 3D sensors, the trench type, is limited by residual non-uniformities in the duration of the induced currents. The intrinsic contribution of the sensor to the total time resolution of the system, when the detector is coupled to a front-end electronics, depends on the characteristics of the electronics itself and can be minimized with a proper design. This paper aims to analyze the possible performance in the timing of a typically-used front-end circuit, the Trans-Impedance Amplifier, considering different possible configurations. Evidence of the preferred modes of operation in sensor read-out for timing measurement will be given.

The next generation of collider experiments require tracking detectors with extreme performance capabilities in terms of spatial resolution (tens of \\(\\mu \\text{m}\\)), radiation hardness (\\(10^{17}~1~\\)MeV n\\(_{eq}/\\)cm\\(^2\\)) and timing resolution (tens of ps). 3D silicon sensors, recently developed within the TimeSPOT initiative, offer a viable solution to cope with such demanding requirements. In order to accurately characterize the timing performance of these new sensors, several read-out boards, based on discrete active components, have been designed, assembled, and tested. The same electronics is also suitable for characterization of similar pixel sensors whenever timing performance in the order and below 10 ps is a requirement. This paper describes the general characteristics needed by front-end electronics to exploit solid-state sensors with fast timing capabilities and in particular, showcases the performance of the developed electronics in the testing and characterization of fast 3D silicon sensors.

We present the first characterization results of Timespot1, an ASIC designed in CMOS 28 nm technology, featuring a \\(32 \\times 32\\) pixel matrix with a pitch of \\(55 ~ \\mu m\\). Timespot1 is the first small-size prototype, conceived to readout fine-pitch pixels with single-hit time resolution below \\(50 ~ ps_\\text{rms}\\) and input rates of several hundreds of kilohertz per pixel. Such experimental conditions will be typical of the next generation of high-luminosity collider experiments, from the LHC run5 and beyond. Each pixel of the ASIC includes a charge amplifier, a discriminator, and a Time-to-Digital Converter with time resolution indicatively of \\(22.6 ~ ps_\\text{rms}\\) and maximum readout rates (per pixel) of \\(3 ~ MHz\\). To respect system-level constraints, the timing performance has been obtained keeping the power budget per pixel below \\(40 ~ \\mu W\\). The ASIC has been tested and characterised in the laboratory concerning its performance in terms of time resolution, power budget and sustainable rates. The ASIC will be hybridized on a matched \\(32 \\times 32\\) pixel sensor matrix and will be tested under laser beam and Minimum Ionizing Particles in the laboratory and at test beams. In this paper we present a description of the ASIC operation and the first results obtained from characterization tests concerning its performance.

Detectors based on pixels with timing capabilities are gaining increasing importance in the last years. Next-to-come high-energy physics experiments at colliders requires the use of time information in tracking, due to the increasing levels of track densities in the foreseen experimental conditions. Various different developments are ongoing on solid state sensors to gain high-resolution performance at the sensor level, as for example LGAD sensors or 3D sensors. Intrinsic sensor time resolution around 20 ps have been recently obtained. The increasing performance on the sensor side strongly demands an adequate development on the front-end electronics side, which now risks to become the performance bottle-neck in a tracking or vertex-detecting system. This paper aims to analyse the ultimate possible performance in timing of a typically-used front-end circuit, the Trans-Impedance Amplifier, considering different possible circuit configurations. Evidence to the preferable modes of operation in sensor read-out for timing measurement will be given.

This paper presents the detailed simulation of a double-pixel structure for charged particle detection based on the 3D-trench silicon sensor developed for the TIMESPOT project and a comparison of the simulation results with measurements performed at \\(\\pi-\\)M1 beam at PSI laboratory. The simulation is based on the combined use of several software tools (TCAD, GEANT4, TCoDe and TFBoost) which allow to fully design and simulate the device physics response in very short computational time, O(1-100 s) per simulated signal, by exploiting parallel computation using single or multi-thread processors. This allowed to produce large samples of simulated signals, perform detailed studies of the sensor characteristics and make precise comparisons with experimental results.

This work presents the first measurements performed on the Timespot1 ASIC. As the second prototype developed for the TimeSPOT project, the ASIC features a 32x32 channels hybrid-pixel matrix. Targeted to space-time tracking applications in High Energy Physics experiments, the system aims to achieve a time resolution of 30 ps or better at a maximum event rate of 3 MHz per channel with a Data Driven interface. Power consumption can be programmed to range between \\(1.2W/cm^{2}\\) and \\(2.6W/cm^{2}\\). The presented results include a description of the ASIC operation and a first characterization of its performance in terms of time resolution.