SHARC: Silicon Highly-segmented Array for Reactions and Coulex used in conjunction with the TIGRESS γ-ray spectrometer

The combination of gamma-ray spectroscopy and charged-particle spectroscopy is a powerful tool for the study of nuclear reactions with beams of nuclei far from stability. This paper presents a new silicon detector array, SHARC, the Silicon Highly-segmented Array for Reactions and Coulex. The array is used at the radioactive-ion-beam facility at TRIUMF (Canada), in conjunction with the TIGRESS gamma-ray spectrometer, and is built from custom Si-strip detectors utilising a fully digital readout. SHARC has more than 50% efficiency, approximately 1000-strip segmentation, angular resolutions of Delta theta approximate to 1 : 3 deg and Delta phi approximate to 3.5 deg, 25-30 keV energy resolution, and thresholds of 200 keV for up to 25 MeV particles. SHARC is now complete, and the experimental program in nuclear astrophysics and nuclear structure has commenced.