Upgrade of the DEFEL proton beam line for detector response mapping

We exploited the possibility of using a pulsed mono-energetic proton beam (DEFEL beam-line @ LABEC, Italy) able to provide bunches of protons with tunable energies for detector qualification, diagnostics and calibration. This allows qualification of the response of the detector-front end system over a wide range of calibrated charge levels, with high precision in space and time, reaching the highest ionization levels foreseen in the imaging detectors for the novel FEL X-ray facilities and in the monolithic detector arrays for the present and future nuclear physics experiments. In order to better fulfill the requests of detector characterization we upgraded the beam line performance in terms of spatial resolution of the proton beam with novel remotely controlled in-vacuum hi-resolution profiling slits and with a CMOS imager as 2D beam monitor. Up to now a beam spot down to about 40 μm has been achieved and potentially can be further improved. The time jitter of the proton bunches is better than 0.5 ns opening the way to probe also the transport dynamics of the charge carriers with accurate time resolution.