A Fast CVD Diamond Beam Loss Monitor for LHC

Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) diamond detectors were installed in the collimation area of the CERN LHC to study their feasibility as Fast Beam Loss Monitors in a high-radiation environment. The detectors were configured with a fast, radiation-hard pre-amplifier with a bandwidth of 2 GHz. The readout was via an oscilloscope with a bandwidth of 1 GHz and a sampling rate of 5 GSPS. Despite the 250 m cable run from the detectors to the oscilloscope, single MIPs were resolved with a 2 ns rise time, a pulse width of 10 ns and a time resolution of less than 1 ns. Two modes of operation were applied. For the analysis of unexpected beam aborts, the loss profile was recorded in a 1 ms buffer and, for nominal operation, the histogram of the time structure of the losses was recorded in synchronism with the LHC period of 89.2 μs. Measurements during the LHC start-up (February to December 2010) are presented. The Diamond Monitors gave an unprecedented insight into the time structure of the beam losses resolving the 400 MHz RF frequency as well as the nominal bunch separation of 25 ns. In future, these detectors will be used to study ghost bunches and particles in the 3 μs abort gap.