Performance Study of a Position-sensitive Plastic Scintillator Detector

Abstract: For a long time, scintillator detectors have suffered from relatively weak spatial resolution due to various influencing factors. Additionally, the high cost of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) has limited the widespread adoption of scintillator detectors as position-sensitive detectors in particle and nuclear physics experiments. In recent years, thanks to the rapid development of silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs), their excellent cost-performance ratio has led to a renewed interest in scintillator detectors in particle and nuclear physics. This project provides a detailed discussion of a detector based on scintillators coupled with SiPMs, focusing on how to improve the detector's position accuracy. By developing algorithms based on traditional optical propagation, a position resolution of mm level has been achieved. Furthermore, the introduction of a machine learning CNN algorithm has further enhanced the detector's position resolution.