Artificial diamonds as radiation-hard detectors for ultra-fast fission-fragment timing

In the framework of the construction of the double time-of-flight spectrometer VERDI, where we aim at measuring pre- and post-neutron masses directly and simultaneously, ultra-fast time pick-up detectors based on artificial diamond material were investigated for the first time with fission fragments from Cf-252 (0.5 MeV/u < E/A < 2 MeV/u). Signal stability under a high radiation fluence was determined up to at least 10(9) fission-fragments/cm(2) together with more than 3.5 x 10(9) neutrons/cm(2) and 3 x 10(10) alpha-particles/cm(2). This fluence is characteristic for fission experiments. The pre-requisite for the observed signal stability is the application of priming of the diamond material with a strong beta-source for about 48 h. The intrinsic timing resolution of a 100 mu m thick polycrystalline CVD diamond detector with a size of 1 x 1 cm(2) was determined to sigma(int) = (283 +/- 41) ps by comparison with Monte-Carlo simulations. Using broadband pre-amplifiers, 4-fold segmented detectors of same total size and with a thickness of 180 mu m show an intrinsic timing resolution of sigma(int) = (106 +/- 21) ps. This is highly competitive with the best micro-channel plate detectors. Due to the limited and batch-dependent charge collection efficiency of poly-crystalline diamond material, the detection efficiency for fission fragments may be smaller than 100%.