Development of a gas scintillation detector for high-intensity proton-beam monitoring

We developed a beam monitoring system using a gas scintillator for the high-intensity proton beam that will be provided by the Korea Multipurpose Accelerator (KOMAC) user beam line. The KOMAC proton beam produces a pulsed beam with a very high beam current. In this case, we face several problems, such as pileup and saturation of signals, with ionization chambers or crystal scintillation detectors. Moreover, some detectors may be damaged by the high dose radiation environment. Gas scintillation has many advantages with respect to these problems. It has not only a very fast response (few ns range) but also strong radiation hardness. We used Ar for the gas scintillation monitoring detector and tested the detector at the KIRAMS (Korea Institute of Radiological & Medical Sciences). The detector showed reasonable performance, and the structure of a proton beam bunch structure was observed.