SETH slice 1 First Light

The first slices of the SETH sensor head is fully integrated and operational.

One of two big BGO scintillators is mounted. Below the BGO is the HET-AB double SSD stack. On the top is one layer of trigger SSDs, 20 Hamamatsu photodiodes, 1×2cm² each. The electronics for the other slice is connected and operational, but kept outside the box without sensors, for now.

Energy deposition spectra of all slice 1 channels.

The first night of data is in, cosmic muons penetrating the sensor, and a pulser generating a calibration charge pulse (200fC) into the preamplifiers once per second.

On the left you see the energy loss spectra of the cosmic muons. The muons loose about 100keV energy with a path length of 300µm in silicon. The resulting charge signal is around 4fC, or 25000 electrons.

The BGO is 20mm thick, resulting in minimally ionizing energy loss of 19MeV. The emitted scintillation photons are collected by six photodiodes, connected to three preamplifiers, giving larger peak height, due to the enormous size of the BGO.

Congrats, Nicolas!!!

We’re excited to announce that Nicolas, our team lead, has officially submitted his Bachelor’s thesis titled “Implementation of the Attitude Determination System (ADS) of the Scintillation Event Triggering Hodoscope (SETH).”

His work on the ADS will play a crucial role in advancing the SETH project. Congratulations from the whole team, Nicolas — we’re proud of your dedication and hard work!

Frog’s First Fitting

After the CDR, we decided to revise the design of the photodiode holder so that it could be 3D-printed as a single piece. This change simplified the assembly process and improved the structural integrity.

We completed the first assembly and fit check of the sensor head – a big milestone for the team! The 3D-printed parts fit together nicely overall. May we present the SETH frog 🐸

However, we did have to slightly enlarge the holes on the “front feet” to make it work properly.

Next up: we’ll need to reopen the shells (the silver parts that hold our crystals) to solder the coaxial cables to the photodiodes, which are glued onto the BGO crytals. Step by step, it’s all coming together!