Timing tests of silicon-photomultipliers for readout of large plastic scintillators

Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) are under study as a possible replacement for timing photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) in the NeuLAND (New Large Area Neutron Detector) detector at FAIR. SiPMs have several advantages over PMTs. They are insensitive to magnetic fields, small and they can be manufactured economically. Therefore, studies have been made with different SiPMs, preamplifiers and scintillators aiming to find a suitable setup with a good timing resolution for NeuLAND. Some parameters, e.g. bias voltage and light input, were tuned as well. The SiPMs were irradiated with an electron beam at ELBE and a picosecond laser system while the signals were recorded with a digital oscilloscope and evaluated by using a software Constant Fraction Discriminator (CFD). Preliminary results are presented.