Fast timing silicon R$\&$D for the future Electron-Ion Collider

Abstract: The proposed Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) will utilize high-luminosity high-energy electron+proton ($e+p$) and electron+nucleus ($e+A$) collisions to solve several fundamental questions including searching for gluon saturation and studying the proton/nuclear structure. Complementary to the ongoing EIC project detector technical prototype carried out by the ePIC collaboration, a Depleted Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor (i.e., MALTA2) based fast timing silicon tracking detector (FMT) has been proposed to provide additional hits for track reconstruction in the forward and backward region at the EIC to improve the overall track reconstruction quality. The fast timing resolution of the MALTA2 technology will help reject background events at the EIC as well. Progress of latest MALTA2 R$&$D, the development of a new MALTA2 quad-sensor prototype module and impacts of the proposed FMT in EIC physics studies will be discussed.