Timing performances of a Time-Of-Flight detection system for the FRACAS large acceptance mass spectrometer

In this work, we report on the timing performances of the Time-Of-Flight (TOF) apparatus of the FRACAS large acceptance mass spectrometer designed to measure the fragmentation cross sections of a 12C beam in hadrontherapy. The TOF system is composed of a Parallel Plate Avalanche Counter and scintillating detectors to create so-called ΔE—TOF maps used in the fragment charge identification process. From tests with an alpha source and a 12C beam experiment, we measured a coincidence resolving time for the apparatus below 300 ps. Those results should lead in the final design to the identification of all the fragments produced by the interaction of 12C ions with thin targets for energies up to 400 MeV/nucleon.