Scintillating Glass, Fiber-Optic Plate Detectors for Active Target and Tracking Applications in High Energy Physics Experiments

We have studied the performance of scintillating glass fiber-optic plates using 10 GeV/c particles at the SLAC test beam. The plates were composed of: (1) Terbium activated cladded-glass cores in a matrix of 15 #x003BC;m spacing; and (2) Cerium activated cladded-glass cores in a matrix of variable spacing 6-10 #x003BC;m. The target plates were viewed with a three-stage, gatable image intensifier. Particle tracks and nuclear interactions were recorded on film for both materials. We observe 5 detected hits/mm for minimum ionizing particles for the Tb glass, and 1-2 hits/mm for the Ce glass. The test results indicate that scintillating glass fiber-optic plates can be used as high spatial resolution tracking detectors for both fixed target and colliding beam experiments.