Multi-channel readout electronics of silicon photomultipliers for plastic scintillating fiber detector

Abstract

A plastic scintillating fiber (SciFi) detector with one-dimensional highly segmented silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) readout can achieve much finer spatial resolution than conventional bulk plastic scintillator detectors. In this work, to construct a large-area SciFi detector for muon scattering tomography, a compact multi-channel front-end electronics is developed based on Citiroc1A, a SiPM readout chip. This electronics system includes an analog board with Citiroc1A for interfacing SiPM arrays, and a digital board with Analog-to-Digital Converter, Field Programmable Gate Array and optical communication modules. We realized primary functions of Citiroc1A and evaluated the system performance on pedestal and pulse response. This front-end electronics design enables to identify a single photoelectron pulse of SiPMs and provide a linear response range up to about 300 pC, which satisfies the requirements of registering cosmic ray muons in the SciFi detector.