Scintillating glass, fiber-optic plate detectors for active target and tracking applications in high energy physics experiments

The authors have studied the performance of scintillating glass fiber-optic plates using 10 GeV/c particles at the SLAC test beam. The plates were composed of: Terbium activated cladded-glass cores in a matrix of 15 μm spacing; and Cerium activated cladded-glass cores in a matrix of variable spacing 6-10 μm. The target plates were viewed with a three-stage, gatable image intensifier. Particle tracks and nuclear interactions were recorded on film for both materials. We observe 5 detected hits/mm for minimum ionizing particles for the Tb glass, and 1-2 hits/mm for the Ce glass. The test results indicate that scintillating glass fiber-optic plates can be used as high spatial resolution tracking detectors for both fixed target and colliding beam experiments