Diamond detectors for heavy ion measurements

En 1999, the accelerator facility at GSI is scheduled to deliver beam intensities of about $10^{10}$ particles spill for all available ions up to $^{238}$U. This necessitates the development of a new generation of radiation-resistent and ultra-fast detectors, in conjunction with new high-speed and low-noise electronics. Preliminary results confirm the suitability of CVD-diamond detectors for both, beam diagnostics, and heavy-ion experiments with projectiles in the energy region from 50 MeV/amu to 2 GeV/amu. Various test measurements with $^{241}$ Am-$\alpha$-particles, $^{20}$Ne, $^{40}$Ca, $^{208}$Pb and $^{238}$U projectiles and different diamond samples are presented. The measurements demonstrate the excellent timing properties ofCVD diamond which result in a unique single-pulse time resolution as well as an extremly high counting-rate capability of diamond detectors. lf is shown that the disadvantage of the presently used polycrystalline material with respect to the pulse-height resolution does not prevent the usage of diamond detectors in a wide field of heavy-ion applications.