ReadOut of AC-LGAD sensors for EIC – ROAD_4_EIC

A new machine to study the internal structure of nucleons and nuclei will start operations in the early 2030s: the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). The hardware contribution that this R&D project addresses (design of a large scale ASIC dedicated to AC-LGAD sensors) is ambitious and requires several ASIC iterations. This project paves the way for many applications within the EIC collaboration, in high energy physics, and will grant to the French community a very strong and visible position internationally.

Exclusive and diffractive processes at EIC will allow to unravel the role of gluons in atomic nuclei. Their measurements require the detection of particles at very small solid angles (<5mrad) with resolutions of about 50 um in position and 30 ps in timing. No compact detector can yet provide 4D measurements (position and time) with these resolutions. However, novel LGAD (Low Gain Avalanche Diodes) sensors with a capacitive coupling (AC) offer very promising prospects. Several detector systems at EIC foresee the use of AC-LGADs, among which the Roman Pots, placed very forward in order to detect particles at very small solid angles.

The performances of such sensors must be evaluated when coupled to a complex micro-electronics readout chip. It is the goal of this project to design an ASIC (32x32 channels) to readout AC-LGAD sensors and to characterize the sensor+ASIC integrated system in an environment close to experimental conditions.

Our consortium is composed of internationally renowned experts in micro-electronics and in semiconductor detector characterization. Relying on AC-LGAD sensor developers at BNL, we thus combine all the required expertise to fully control the system “sensor+ASIC”.

Such a development will find a wealth of applications beyond EIC (Roman Pots, …) and is particularly interesting for future collider projects (FCC, ILC...).