Paper detail

Timing performances of a Time-of-Flight detection system for the FRACAS large acceptance mass spectrometer

In this work, we report on the timing performances of the Time-Of-Flight (TOF) apparatus of the FRACAS large acceptance mass spectrometer designed to measure the fragmentation cross sections of a $^{12}$C beam in hadrontherapy. The TOF system is composed of a Parallel Plate Avalanche Counter and scintillating detectors to create so-called $Δ$E---TOF maps used in the fragment charge identification process. From tests with an alpha source and a $^{12}$C beam experiment, we measured a coincidence resolving time for the apparatus below 300 ps. Those results should lead in the final design to the identification of all the fragments produced by the interaction of $^{12}$C ions with thin targets for energies up to 400 MeV/nucleon.