Tops project: Development of new fast timing plastic scintillators

In particle physics charged particles are measured exploiting many different detection strategies. The plastic scintillators are cheap, versatile and show good time response, thus are traditionally employed as timing detectors. TOPS (Time Of flight Plastic Scintillators) is an R&D project devoted to the synthesis and characterization of a novel class of plastic scintillators. Liquid and solid samples of tens of new scintillators have been tested and characterized. Some of them (2N, 1N, 2B, P2, T2) have shown a larger light output with respect to antracene, a standard benchmark material, and good timing properties. In order to improve the matching between the scintillators emission and the optimal trasmittive region in the absorption spectra, a doping material has been added as wave-shifter. The use of POPOP as doping improved the performances of a fraction of the scintillator samples. Based on the comparison of the light output values in measurements with cosmic rays, a selection of the most promising scintillators has been investigated also from the timing point of view. The scintillation time characteristics of the TOPS plastic samples have been studied with minimum ionizing particles using a commercial plastic scintillator BC-412 as a reference. 'The light output and timing properties have been also investigated with proton beams at different energies (70. 120, 170, 220 MeV) and show promising results providing a time of flight measurements accuracy of 150-300 ps. In this contribution, preliminary results obtained with this new class of scintillators developed in the TOPS project will be presented.