Additive manufacturing of a 3D-segmented plastic scintillator detector for tracking and calorimetry of elementary particles

Plastic-scintillator detectors are devices used for the detection of elementary particles. They provide good particle identification with excellent time resolution, whilst being inexpensive due to the affordability of plastic materials. Particle tracking is achieved by segmenting the scintillator into smaller optically-isolated 3D granular sub-structures which require the integration of multiple types of plastic materials as well as several thousands of tiny holes through a compact volume of several cubic meters. Future particle detectors necessitate larger volumes, possibly with even finer segmentation. However, manufacturing such geometries with current production strategies is challenging, as they involve time-consuming and costly fabrication processes, followed by the assembly of millions of individual parts. The difficulty in scaling up such a workflow can be addressed by additive manufacturing, enabling the construction of complex, monolithic geometries in a single operation. This article presents the fabrication of the first additive manufactured plastic scintillator detector, capable of 3D tracking elementary particles and measuring their stopping power. Its performance is comparable to the state of the art of plastic scintillator detectors. This work paves the way towards a new feasible, time and cost-effective process for the production of future plastic-based scintillator detectors, regardless their size and difficulty in geometry.