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Having advantages of low capacitance and low energy threshold, the PC-HPGe (Point-Contact High Purity Germanium) detector has found its application in the direct detection of WIMP(Weak Interaction Massive Particle) in CDEX (China Darkmatter Experiment). The MSE (Multi-Site Event) and SSE(Single-Site Event) discrimination methods of the PC-HPGe detector are introduced in this article, including their physical basis, the electronics system and the algorithms to implement them. Behaviors of the PC-HPGe detector are studied intensively through this research and finally the experimental results of the LE discrimination method are presented.

Multi-gap resistive plate chamber (MRPC), which is mostly developed in high energy physics domain with excellent time resolution, is also highlighted in imaging applications. A set of 50 cm×50 cm large area MRPC with high position resolution was successfully developed by our group and different experiments have been done to test its performances. Cosmic ray muons were used to do the test and proper high voltage and working gas were chosen. Data analysis indicates its good detection efficiency and good position resolution, which encourages further study of its application in RPC-PET and muon tomography.

A kind of two-dimensional readout electrode structure for the induced signal readout of MRPC has been studied in both simulation and experiments. Several MRPC prototypes are produced and a series of test experiments have been done to compare with the result of simulation, in order to verify the simulation model. The experiment results are in good agreement with those of simulation. This method will be used to design the two-dimensional signal readout mode of MRPC in the future work.

The CDEX (China Dark matter EXperiment) Collaboration will carry out a direct search for WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) using an Ultra-Low Energy Threshold High Purity Germanium (ULE-HPGe) detector at the CJPL (China JinPing deep underground Laboratory). A complex shielding system was designed to reduce backgrounds and a detailed GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulation was performed to study the achievable reduction of γ rays induced by radionuclides and neutron backgrounds by D(γ,n)p reaction. Furthermore, the upper level of allowed radiopurity of shielding materials was estimated under the constraint of the expected goal. Compared with the radiopurity reported by other low-background rare-event experiments, it indicates that the shielding used in the CDEX can be made out of materials with obtainable radiopurity.

The effects of surface resistivity of the high voltage provider on the space dispersion of the induced charge of a prototype Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) have been studied experimentally and theoretically. The results of both experiment and theory agree and confirm that a two-Gaussian function can be used to fit the dispersion of the induced charge of the RPC. It is shown that the Gaussian function with the narrower width is mainly due to the expansion of the avalanche charge in the gas gap of the RPC, and the Gaussian function with the larger width is due to the charge dispersion when it passes through the resistive carbon film. This will be useful in the RPC design when one wants to make an RPC with high position resolution.

The possibility to detect fast neutrons with a multi-gap resistive plate chamber (MRPC) has been investigated. To detect fast neutrons, a thin polyethylene layer is coated on the surface of electrode glass as a fast neutron converter. The MRPC detects the charged particles generated by neutrons via the (n,p) reaction on hydrogen. A prototype detector has been developed and tested on fast neutron sources in order to evaluate its performance: good agreement between experimental results and simulation has been achieved. A detailed description of the detector and the experimental test results are presented.

A new method to monitor the energy variation of a multi-energy electron linac by combining a Cerenkov detector and a CsI(Tl) detector is reported. The signals in the Cerenkov detector show an appreciable but different dependence on the energy of the electron linac from the traditional CsI(Tl) detector due to the particular response of the former to charged electrons with high velocity above threshold. The method is more convenient than the HVL (half-value layer) method which is commonly employed to calibrate the energy of an electron linac for real time monitoring. The preliminary validity of the method is verified in a dual-energy electron linac with 6 MeV and 3 MeV gears. Moreover, the method combining the Cerenkov detector and the CsI(Tl) detector is applicable to probe the X-ray spectrum hardened by the inspected material and may serve as a novel tool for material discrimination with effective atomic number in radiation imaging.

A prototype RPC with position resolution less than 1 mm has been produced and studied. Based on this RPC detector, the effect of the width of the integrated FADC time window on the position resolution of a RPC has been studied experimentally and theoretically. The results of theoretical calculation and experimental measurement have shown good agreement.

Six-gap resistive plate chamber (MRPC) prototypes with semiconductive glass electrodes (bulk resistivity ~ 1010 Ωcm) were studied for suitability in time-of-flight (TOF) applications at high rates. These studies were performed using a continuous electron beam of 800 MeV at IHEP and an X-ray machine. Time resolutions of about 100 ps and efficiencies larger than 90% were obtained for flux densities up to 28 kHz/cm2.

Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) is a new generation of gas detector with good timing and spacial resolution, whose technique is widely applied in some recent high energy (nuclear) physics experiments. In this letter, we report a long-strip two-end readout MRPC and its test beam performance. The measurements show that the long-strip performs a transmission line characteristic and the impedance is independent of the length of strip. The MRPC module we developed is presented to gain a timing resolution of ~80 ps and a spacial resolution of ~6.4 mm. The possible application of the MRPC is also discussed.

A prototype RPC detector with a 2-mm readout strip pitch has been built for research into its position resolution. After determining the optimal threshold and working voltage, the efficiency and position resolution of this prototype RPC detector have been studied carefully. Using cosmic-ray muons with different directions and incident positions, we have obtained less than 0.5-mm average statistical errors of position resolution for two different RPC readout structures: 1- and 1.7-mm readout strip widths. The results show that the RPC can also give high position resolution with very little variation from its traditional structure. This will lead to possible applications of the RPC in medical imaging and other domains.

Among the various micro-pattern gas detectors (MPGD) that are available, the gas electron multiplier (GEM) detector is an attractive gas detector that has been used in particle physics experiments. However, the GEM detector usually needs thousands of preamplifier units for its large number of micro-pattern readout strips or pads, which leads to considerable difficulties and complexities for front end electronics (FEE). Nowadays, by making use of complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-based application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), it is feasible to integrate hundreds of preamplifier units and other signal process circuits in a small-sized chip, which can be bound to the readout strips or pads of a micro-pattern particle detector (MPPD). Therefore, CMOS ASIC may provide an ideal solution to the readout problem of MPPD. In this article, a triple GEM detector is constructed and one of its readout strips is connected to a CMOS charge-sensitive preamplifier chip. The chip was exposed to an 55Fe source of 5.9 keV X-ray, and the amplitude spectrum of the chip was tested, and it was found that the energy resolution was approximately 27%, which indicates that the chip can be used in triple GEM detectors.

A digital radiography system was constructed in a portable version suitable for field use. The system uses pulsed X-ray generator. Radiographic images are formed using scintillating screen coupled to a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera and transmitted to a portable computer through the network. The system works well on safety inspection, non-destructive testing and medical diagnosis. The structure and performance of the system are presented.

A kind of multi-gap resistive plate chamber (MRPC) was developed for the STAR experiment at RHIC. The MRPC has excellent time resolution with high efficiency and can be used as the time-of-flight detector. In this paper, we present some performance of MRPC tested by cosmic ray, and performances of MRPC working in different gas mixture and in different temperature are also illustrated.

The methods for the manufacture and test of multi-gap resistive plate chambers are described. Multi-gap resistive plate chamber (MRPC) will be used as time-of-flight detector for the STAR experiment at RHIC. The technique of manufacture described not only ensures the quality of MRPCs but also improves the efficiency of manufacture. The method for fast test of MRPC modules can also improve the efficiency of the test greatly.

A four-channel digital flash X-ray imaging system has been developed in our lab. The four flash X-ray heads and four detectors can be used to obtain four radiographic images at four time intervals of an explosion and ballistic trajectory. The cascaded imaging system mainly consists of three parts: (1) a phosphor screen to convert incident X-rays into visible photons; (2) a lens to efficiently collect visible photons emitted by the phosphor screen; and (3) a charge coupled device image sensor to obtain the visible light image. From the analysis of signal and noise propagation, the system is not X-ray quantum-limited, rather the system has secondary quantum sink at the light collecting stage. The construction of the system, theoretical and experimental analysis of performance are presented.

The inorganic CsI(Tl) crystal scintillator is a candidate served as an anti-compton detector for China Dark matter EXperiment (CDEX). Studying the intrinsic radiopurity of CsI(Tl) crystal is an issue of major importance. The timing, energy and spatial correlations, as well as the capability of pulse shape discrimination provide powerful methods for the measurement of intrinsic radiopurities. The experimental design, detector performance and event-selection algorithms are described. A total of 359*3 kg-days data from three prototypes of CsI(Tl) crystals were taken at China Jinping underground laboratory where offers a good shielding environment. The contamination levels of internal isotopes from Cs-137, Th-232 and U-238 series, as well as the upper bounds of U-235 series are reported. Identification of the whole alpha8 peaks from U/Th decay chains and derivation of those corresponding quenching factors are achieved., Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, 5 tables