The Topmetal-M is a large area pixel sensor (18 mm * 23 mm) prototype fabricated in a new 130 nm high-resistivity CMOS process in 2019. It contains 400 rows * 512 columns square pixels with the pitch of 40 μm. In Topmetal-M, a novel charge collection method combing the Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor (MAPS) and the Topmetal sensor has been proposed for the first time. Both the ionized charge deposited by the particle in the sensor and along the track over the sensor can be collected. The in-pixel circuit mainly consists of a low-noise charge sensitive amplifier to establish the signal for the energy reconstruction, and a discriminator with a Time-to-Amplitude Converter (TAC) for the Time of Arrival (TOA) measurement. With this mechanism, the trajectory, particle hit position, energy and arrival time of the particle can be measured. The analog signal from each pixel is accessible through time-shared multiplexing over the entire pixel array. This paper will discuss the design and preliminary test results of the Topmetal-M sensor.
\textit{Topmetal-${II}^-$} is a highly pixelated direct charge sensor that contains a 72${\times}$72 pixel array of 83$μ$m pitch size. The key feature of \textit{Topmetal-${II}^-$} is that it can directly collect charges via metal nodes of each pixel to form two-dimensional images of charge cloud distributions. \textit{Topmetal-${II}^-$} was proved to measure charged particles without amplification at room temperature. To measure its performance at cryogenic temperature, a \textit{Topmetal-${II}^-$} sensor is embedded into a liquid nitrogen dewar. The results presented in this paper show that …
Using industrial standard 0.35μm CMOS Integrated Circuit process, we realized a highly pixelated sensor that directly collects charge via metal nodes placed on the top of each pixel and forms two dimensional images of charge cloud distribution. The first version, Topmetal-I, features a 64x64 pixel array of 80μm pitch size. Direct charge calibration reveals an average capacitance of 210fF per pixel. The charge collection noise is near the thermal noise limit. With the readout, individual pixel channels exhibit a most probable equivalent noise charge of 330e-.
We present the detailed study of the digital readout of Topmetal-II- CMOS pixel direct charge sensor. Topmetal-II- is an integrated sensor with an array of 72X72 pixels each capable of directly collecting external charge through exposed metal electrodes in the topmost metal layer. In addition to the time-shared multiplexing readout of the analog output from Charge Sensitive Amplifiers in each pixel, hits are also generated through comparators with individually DAC settable thresholds in each pixel. The hits are read out via a column-based priority logic structure, retaining both hit location a…
\textit{Topmetal-${II}^-$} is a low noise CMOS pixel direct charge sensor with a pitch of 83$μm$. CdZnTe is an excellent semiconductor material for radiation detection. The combination of CdZnTe and the sensor makes it possible to build a detector with high spatial resolution. In our experiments, an epoxy adhesive is used as the conductive medium to connect the sensor and Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CdZnTe). The diffusion coefficient and charge efficiency of electrons are measured at a low bias voltage of -2 Volts, and the image of a single alpha is clear with a reasonable spatial resolution. The …
We report the design and characterization of a CMOS pixel direct charge sensor, Topmetal-II-, fabricated in a standard 0.35um CMOS Integrated Circuit process. The sensor utilizes exposed metal patches on top of each pixel to directly collect charge. Each pixel contains a low-noise charge-sensitive preamplifier to establish the analog signal and a discriminator with tunable threshold to generate hits. The analog signal from each pixel is accessible through time-shared multiplexing over the entire array. Hits are read out digitally through a column-based priority logic structure. Tests show that…
In this paper, we study how pixel size influences energy resolution for a proposed pixelated detector---a high sensitivity, low cost, and real-time radon monitor based on \textit{Topmetal-${II}^-$} time projection chamber (TPC). Using \textit{Topmetal-${II}^-$} sensors assembled by 0.35 $μ$m CMOS Integrated Circuit process, this monitor is designed to improve the spatial resolution of detecting radon alpha particles. Concerning small pixel size might has a side effect of worsening energy resolution due to lower signal to noise ratio, a Great4-based simulation is used to figure out energy resol…
We report the design and test results of a beam monitor developed for online monitoring in hadron therapy. The beam monitor uses eight silicon pixel sensors, \textit{Topmetal-${II}^-$}, as the anode array. \textit{Topmetal-${II}^-$} is a charge sensor designed in a CMOS 0.35 $μ$m technology. Each \textit{Topmetal-${II}^-$} sensor has $72\times72$ pixels and the pixel size is $83\times83$ $μ$m$^2$. In our design, the beam passes through the beam monitor without hitting the electrodes, making the beam monitor especially suitable for monitoring heavy ion beams. This design also reduces radiation …
We propose a novel charge sensing concept for high-pressure Time Projection Chamber (TPC) to search for Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay (NLDBD) with ton-scale isotope mass and beyond. A meter-sized plane, tiled with an array of CMOS integrated sensors called Topmetal that directly collect charge without gas avalanche gain, is to be deployed into a high-pressure gaseous TPC with working gases containing suitable NLDBD candidate isotopes such as Xe-136 and Se-82. The Topmetal sensor has an electronic noise <30 e- per pixel, which allows the detector to reach <1% FWHM energy resolution at the NLDB…
Imaging sensors made from an ionization target layer of amorphous selenium (aSe) coupled to a silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) active pixel array for charge readout are a promising technology for neutrino physics. The high spatial resolution in a solid-state target provides unparalleled rejection of backgrounds from natural radioactivity in the search for neutrinoless $ββ$ decay and for solar neutrino spectroscopy with $^{82}$Se. We present results on the ionization response of aSe measured from the photoabsorption of 122 keV $γ$ rays in a single-pixel device. We report o…
This paper presents a study of vertex tracking with a beam hodoscope consisting of three layers of monolithic pixel sensors in SOI technology on high-resistivity substrate. We study the track extrapolation accuracy, two-track separation and vertex reconstruction accuracy in pion-Cu interactions with 150 and 300 GeV/c pions at the CERN SPS. Results are discussed in the context of vertex tracking at future lepton colliders.
The inner drift chamber of the BESIII is encountering serious aging problem after five year's running. For the first layer, the decrease in gas gain is about 26% from 2009 to 2013. The upgrade of the inner tracking detector has become an urgent problem for the BESIII experiment. An inner tracker using CMOS pixel sensors is an important candidate because of its great advantages on spatial resolution and radiation hardness. In order to carry out a Monte Carlo study on the expected performance, a Geant4-based full simulation for the silicon pixel detector has been implemented. The tracking method…
The development of an innovative position sensitive pixelated sensor to detect and measure with high precision the coordinates of the ionizing particles is proposed. The silicon avalanche pixel sensors (APiX) is based on the vertical integration of avalanche pixels connected in pairs and operated in coincidence in fully digital mode and with the processing electronics embedded on the chip. The APiX sensor addresses the need to minimize the material budget and related multiple scattering effects in tracking systems requiring a high spatial resolution in the presence of a large occupancy. The ex…
This paper presents the design of a new monolithic Silicon-On-Insulator pixel sensor in $200~nm$ SOI CMOS technology. The main application of the proposed pixel detector is the spectroscopy, but it can also be used for the minimum ionizing particle (MIP) tracking in particle physics experiments. For this reason few different versions of pixel cells are developed: a source-follower based pixel for tracking, a low noise pixel with preamplifier for spectroscopy, and a self-triggering pixel for time and amplitude measurements. In addition the design of a Successive Approximation Register Analog-to…
CMOS Pixel Sensors tend to become relevant for a growing spectrum of charged particle detection instruments. This comes mainly from their high granularity and low material budget. However, several potential applications require a higher read-out speed and radiation tolerance than those achieved with available devices based on a 0.35 micrometers feature size technology. This paper shows preliminary test results of new prototype sensors manufactured in a 0.18 micrometers process based on a high resistivity epitaxial layer of sizeable thickness. Grounded on these observed performances, we discuss…
The present Compact Muon Solenoid silicon pixel tracking system has been designed for a peak luminosity of 1034cm-2s-1 and total dose corresponding to two years of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) operation. With the steady increase of the luminosity expected at the LHC, a new pixel detector with four barrel layers and three endcap disks is being designed. We will present the key points of the design: the new geometry, which minimizes the material budget and increases the tracking points, and the development of a fast digital readout architecture, which ensures readout efficiency even at high r…
A CMOS pixel sensor, named Supix-1, is developed for a pixelated silicon tracker for the Circular Electron-Positron Collider (CEPC) project. The sensor, consisted of nine sectors varying in pixel sizes, diode sizes and geometries, is fabricated with a 180 nm CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) process to study the particle detection performance of enlarged pixels. In this work, the radiation-induced effects on the charge collection of the sensor under the fluence of 1 $\times$ 10^13 1 MeV neq/cm^2 are studied by the measurements with the radioactive source of Fe-55 and the Technology Computer Aided Design…
For its physics program with a high-intensity hadron beam of up to 2e7 particles/s, the COMPASS experiment at CERN requires tracking of charged particles scattered by very small angles with respect to the incident beam direction. While good resolution in time and space is mandatory, the challenge is imposed by the high beam intensity, requiring radiation-hard detectors which add very little material to the beam path in order to minimize secondary interactions. To this end, a set of triple-GEM detectors with a hybrid readout structure consisting of pixels in the beam region and 2-D strips in th…
CMOS pixel sensors (CPS) represent a novel technological approach to building charged particle detectors. CMOS processes allow to integrate a sensing volume and readout electronics in a single silicon die allowing to build sensors with a small pixel pitch ($\sim 20 μm$) and low material budget ($\sim 0.2-0.3\% X_0$) per layer. These characteristics make CPS an attractive option for vertexing and tracking systems of high energy physics experiments. Moreover, thanks to the mass production industrial CMOS processes used for the manufacturing of CPS the fabrication construction cost can be signifi…
The basic principle of operation of silicon sensors with resistive read-out is built-in charge sharing. Resistive Silicon Detectors (RSD, also known as AC-LGAD), exploiting the signals seen on the electrodes surrounding the impact point, achieve excellent space and time resolutions even with very large pixels. In this paper, a TCT system using a 1064 nm picosecond laser is used to characterize sensors from the second RSD production at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler. The paper first introduces the parametrization of the errors in the determination of the position and time coordinates in RSD, then…
The entire tracking system of the ATLAS experiment will be replaced during the LHC Phase-II shutdown. A new silicon Inner Tracker (ITk) will contain five pixel layers equipped with new sensors and readout electronics capable to improve the tracking performance, cope with the high particle multiplicity and work in a high-luminosity environment. In order to standardize modules of the Inner Tracker, the idea of a common hybrid pixel module was introduced to be used in all regions of the detector. The common hybrid module assembly and testing techniques will be presented. The module construction, …
Run-2 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will provide new challenges to track and vertex reconstruction with higher energies, denser jets and higher rates. Therefore the ATLAS experiment has constructed the first 4-layer Pixel Detector in HEP, installing a new pixel layer, also called Insertable B-Layer (IBL). The IBL is a fourth layer of pixel detectors, and has been installed in May 2014 at a radius of 3.3 cm between the existing Pixel Detector and a new smaller radius beam-pipe. The new detector, built to cope with the high radiation and expected occupancy, is the first large scale applicat…
This is part of a document, which is devoted to the developments of pixel detectors in the context of the International Linear Collider. From the early developments of the MIMOSAs to the proposed DotPix I recall some of the major progresses. The need for very precise vertex reconstruction is the reason for the Research and Development of new pixel detectors, first derived from the CMOS sensors and in further steps with new semiconductors structures. The problem of radiation effects was investigated and this is the case for the noise level with emphasis of the benefits of downscaling. Specific …
The hit combinatorial problem is a main challenge for track reconstruction and triggering at high rate experiments. At hadron colliders the dominant fraction of hits is due to low momentum tracks for which multiple scattering (MS) effects dominate the hit resolution. MS is also the dominating source for hit confusion and track uncertainties in low energy precision experiments. In all such environments, where MS dominates, track reconstruction and fitting can be largely simplified by using three-dimensional (3D) hit-triplets as provided by pixel detectors. This simplification is possible since …
The phase 1 upgrade of the CMS pixel detector has been designed to maintain the tracking performance at instantaneous luminosities of $2 \times 10^{34} \mathrm{~cm}^{-2} \mathrm{~s}^{-1}$. Both barrel and endcap disk systems now feature one extra layer (4 barrel layers and 3 endcap disks), and a digital readout that provides a large enough bandwidth to read out its 124M pixel channels (87.7 percent more pixels compared to the previous system). The backend control and readout systems have been upgraded accordingly from VME-based to micro-TCA-based ones. The detector is now also equipped with a …
ITACA revisited: Ion Tracking Apparatus with CMOS ASICs
Donostia International Physics Center（多诺西亚国际物理中心）；Ben-Gurion University of the Negev（内盖夫本-古里安大学）；Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC, CSIC-UV)（粒子物理研究所（IFIC，CSIC-UV））
During the Long Shutdown 2 of the LHC in 2018/2019, the ALICE experiment plans the installation of a novel Inner Tracking System. It will replace the current six layer detector system with a seven layer detector using Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors. The upgraded Inner Tracking System will have significantly improved tracking and vertexing capabilities, as well as readout rate to cope with the expected increased Pb-Pb luminosity of the LHC. The choice of Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors has been driven by the specific requirements of ALICE as a heavy ion experiment dealing with rare processes a…
The Argonne Pixel Tracking Telescope is installed at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility. The telescope consists of six planar n^{+}-in-n silicon sensors with a pixel size of 250 {\times} 50 μm^{2}. The instrumentation of the telescope is described including the electrical and mechanical setups. A 120 GeV proton beam is used to evaluate the telescope performance using criteria such as the cluster size, pixel tracking efficiency, and spatial resolution. The spatial resolution of the telescope is measured to be 72 μm {\times} 13 μm.
The ATLAS Collaboration will upgrade its semiconductor pixel tracking detector with a new Insertable B-layer (IBL) between the existing pixel detector and the vacuum pipe of the Large Hadron Collider. The extreme operating conditions at this location have necessitated the development of new radiation hard pixel sensor technologies and a new front-end readout chip, called the FE-I4. Planar pixel sensors and 3D pixel sensors have been investigated to equip this new pixel layer, and prototype modules using the FE-I4A have been fabricated and characterized using 120 GeV pions at the CERN SPS and 4…
The LHC machine at CERN finished its first year of pp collisions at a center of mass energy of 7 TeV. While the commissioning to exploit its full potential is still ongoing, there are plans to upgrade its components to reach instantaneous luminosities beyond the initial design value after 2016. A corresponding upgrade of the innermost part of the CMS detector, the pixel detector, is needed. A full replacement of the pixel detector is planned in 2016. It will not only address limitations of the present system at higher data rates, but will aggressively lower the amount of material inside the fi…
We report results on a tracking performance study performed using a beam telescope made of 50 micron-thick CMOS pixel sensors on the 1.5 GeV electron beam at the LBNL ALS.
The ATLAS collaboration will replace its tracking detector with new all silicon pixel and strip systems. This will allow to cope with the higher radiation and occupancy levels expected after the 5-fold increase in the luminosity of the LHC accelerator complex (HL-LHC). In the new tracking detector (ITk) pixel modules with increased granularity will implement to maintain the occupancy with a higher track density. In addition, both sensors and read-out chips composing the hybrid modules will be produced employing more radiation hard technologies with respect to the present pixel detector. Due to…
In order to achieve the challenging requirements on the CLIC vertex detector, a range of technology options have been considered in recent years. One prominent idea is the use of active sensors implemented in a commercial high-voltage CMOS process, capacitively coupled to hybrid pixel readout chips. Recent results have shown the approach to be feasible, though more detailed studies of the performance of such devices, including simulation, are required. The CLICdp collaboration has developed a number of ASICs as part of its vertex detector R&D programme, and here we present results on the perfo…
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiments ATLAS and CMS have established hybrid pixel detectors as the instrument of choice for particle tracking and vertexing in high rate and radiation environments, as they operate close to the LHC interaction points. With the High Luminosity-LHC upgrade now in sight, for which the tracking detectors will be completely replaced, new generations of pixel detectors are being devised. They have to address enormous challenges in terms of data throughput and radiation levels, ionizing and non-ionizing, that harm the sensing and readout parts of pixel detectors …
The reconstruction of charged particle trajectories in tracking detectors is a key problem in the analysis of experimental data for high-energy and nuclear physics. The amount of data in modern experiments is so large that classical tracking methods, such as the Kalman filter, cannot process them fast enough. To solve this problem, we developed two neural network algorithms based on deep learning architectures for track recognition in pixel and strip-based particle detectors. These are TrackNETv3 for local (track by track) and RDGraphNet for global (all tracks in an event) tracking. These algo…
The CERN-RD50 CMOS working group develops the RD50-MPWseries of monolithic high-voltage CMOS pixel sensors for potential use in future high luminosity experiments such as the HL-LHC and FCC-hh. In this contribution, the design of the latest prototype in this series, RD50-MPW3, is presented. An overview of its pixel matrix and digital readout periphery is given, with discussion of the new structures implemented in the chip and the problems they aim to solve. The main analog and digital features of the sensor are already tested and initial laboratory characterisation of the chip is presented.
This report reviews current trends in the R&D of semiconductor pixellated sensors for vertex tracking and radiation imaging. It identifies requirements of future HEP experiments at colliders, needed technological breakthroughs and highlights the relation to radiation detection and imaging applications in other fields of science.
Monolithic active pixel sensors (MAPS) are now well established as a technology for tracking charged particles, especially when low material budget is desirable. For such applications, sensors focus on spatial resolution and pixels with digital output or modest charge measurement ability are well suited. Within the European Union STRONG-2020 project, which focuses on experiments using hadrons, the TIIMM (Tracking and Ions Identifications with Minimal Material budget) joint research activity intends to expand granular MAPS capacity to energy-loss (ΔE) measurement for ion species identification.…
A prototype of the CMOS pixel sensor named SUPIX-1 has been fabricated and tested in order to investigate the feasibility of a pixelated tracker for a proposed Higgs factory, namely, the Circular Electron-Positron Collider (CEPC). The sensor, taped out with a 180 nm CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) process, consists of nine different pixel arrays varying in pixel pitches, diode sizes and geometries in order to study the particle detection performance of enlarged pixels. The test was carried out with a Fe-55 radioactive source. Two soft X-ray peaks observed were used to calibrate the charge to voltage f…
This paper presents the results of the characterisation of a pixel sensor manufactured in OKI 0.2 micron SOI technology integrated on a high-resistivity substrate, and featuring several pixel cell layouts for charge collection optimisation. The sensor is tested with short IR laser pulses, X-rays and 200 GeV pions. We report results on charge collection, particle detection efficiency and single point resolution.
The High Luminosity upgrade of the CERN Large Hadron Collider will be able to reach a peak instantaneous luminosity of 5E34/cm2 s. The innermost detectors of the CMS and ATLAS experiments will have to cope with unprecedented requirements on radiation hardness. At the end of the operation period, radiation levels are expected to reach values above 2.6E16 neq/cm2. Sensors based on 3D pixel technology, with intrinsic radiation tolerance, are the baseline option for the innermost layers of the vertex detectors of several HL-LHC experiments. This article gives an overview of the ongoing characteriz…
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 dem…
The ATLAS Pixel detector is a high-resolution, low-noise silicon-based device designed to provide tracking and vertexing information within a distance of 12 cm from the LHC beam axis. It consists of approximately 80 million pixel channels with radiation-hard front-end electronics connected through optical fibers to a custom-controlled DAQ system away from the detector. Following the successful installation of the detector in June 2007, an intense commissioning period was conducted in the year 2008 and more than 400,000 cosmic-ray tracks were recorded in conjunction with other ATLAS sub-detecto…
We present results of a study of charged particle track and vertex reconstruction with a beam telescope made of four layers of 50 micron-thin CMOS monolithic pixel sensors using the 120 GeV protons at the FNAL Meson Test Beam Facility. We compare our results to the performance requirements of a future e+e- linear collider in terms of particle track extrapolation and vertex reconstruction accuracies.
A prototype particle tracking telescope has been constructed using Timepix and Medipix ASIC hybrid pixel assemblies as the six sensing planes. Each telescope plane consisted of one 1.4 cm2 assembly, providing a 256x256 array of 55 micron square pixels. The telescope achieved a pointing resolution of 2.3 micron at the position of the device under test. During a beam test in 2009 the telescope was used to evaluate in detail the performance of two Timepix hybrid pixel assemblies; a standard planar 300 micron thick sensor, and 285 micron thick double sided 3D sensor. This paper describes a detaile…
The Pixel Detector is the innermost detector of the tracking system of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It precisely determines the interaction point (primary vertex) of the events and the possible secondary vertexes due to heavy flavours ($b$ and $c$ quarks); it is part of the overall tracking system that allows reconstructing the tracks of the charged particles in the events and combined with the magnetic field to measure their impulsion. The pixel detector allows measuring the tracks in the region closest to the interaction point. The Level-1 (…
Silicon tracking detectors can record the charge in each channel (analog or digitized) or have only binary readout (hit or no hit). While there is significant literature on the position resolution obtained from interpolation of charge measurements, a comprehensive study of the resolution obtainable with binary readout is lacking. It is commonly assumed that the binary resolution is $\text{pitch}/\sqrt{12}$, but this is generally a worst case upper limit. In this paper we study, using simulation, the best achievable resolution for minimum ionizing particles in binary readout pixels. A wide rang…
The use of CMOS Pixel Sensors (CPS) for high resolution and low material vertex detectors has been validated with the 2014 and 2015 physics runs of the STAR-PXL detector at RHIC/BNL. This opens the door to the use of CPS for inner tracking devices, with 10-100 times larger sensitive area, which require therefore a sensor design privileging power saving, response uniformity and robustness. The 350 nm CMOS technology used for the STAR-PXL sensors was considered as too poorly suited to upcoming applications like the upgraded ALICE Inner Tracking System (ITS), which requires sensors with one order…
The physics aims at the proposed high-energy $e^+e^-$ collider CLIC pose challenging demands on the performance of the detector system. Precise hit-time tagging, an excellent spatial resolutions, and a low mass are required for the vertex and tracking detectors. To meet these requirements, an all-silicon vertex and tracking detector system is foreseen, for which a broad R&D programme on a variety of novel silicon detector technologies is being pursued. For the ultra-low mass vertex detector, different hybrid technologies with innovative sensor concepts and interconnection techniques are explor…
We developed a novel design of a Micro Pixel Chamber ($μ$-PIC) with resistive electrodes for a charged-particle-tracking detector in high-rate applications. Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) thin film is used for the cathodes. The resistivity can be controlled flexibly ($\mathrm{10^{5-7}kΩ/sq.}$) at high uniformity. The fabrication-process was greatly improved and the resistive $μ$-PIC could be operated at 10$\times$10 $\mathrm{cm^2}$. Resistors for the HV bias and capacitors for the AC coupling were completely removed by applying PCB and carbon-sputtering techniques, and the resistive $μ$-PIC became …
TCAD + Allpi$\text{x}^2$ Simulation study of MALTA2, a Depleted Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor for future tracking
University of Birmingham（伯明翰大学）；CERN（欧洲核子研究中心）；Indian Institute Technology Madras（马德拉斯印度理工学院）；University of Oxford（牛津大学）；University of Glasgow（格拉斯哥大学）；Stony Brook University（石溪大学）；High Energy Accelerator Research Organization（高能加速器研究机构）；Ankara University（安卡拉大学）；Los Alamos National Laboratory（洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室）
本研究结合 TCAD 和 Allpi$\text{x}^2$ 的混合仿真框架，通过优化 N 型覆盖层掺杂浓度并利用掠射角方法，实现了对 MALTA2 传感器性能的准确模拟，活性深度与测量值偏差仅 2%。
