David Gascon is Associate Professor at the University of Barcelona (UB). He has been working in advanced instrumentation and technologies for astrophysics, particle physics and medical applications since 1998. He received a BSc degree in electronics engineering from University Ramon Llull, Spain in 1998, and a PhD degree in electronics from University of Barcelona, Spain in 2008. Currently he is working in the instrumentation group of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), Spain. He is Director of the Technology Unit of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the UB since 2016 (https://icc.ub.edu/research/technology-unit). His research activity is in the area of mixed signals circuits for high energy physics, astrophysics experiments and medical imaging. Particularly, he is interested in ASIC design for fast photodetector readout and front-end electronics. He has directed 5 PhD Thesis and has co-authored more than 100 refereed publications in scientific instruments technology. He holds 6 patent applications with several industrial licenses.

Electronics for fast detectors

This tutorial will cover readout electronics for fast timing photosensors detectors and their application in high energy physics and related fields as medical imaging. First, we will cover signal sensor model and the interplay of sensor and front-end electronics. Then, we will consider preamplifier, shaping and comparator circuits for high-speed response and different aspects determining time resolution: jitter, time-walk, pile-up, baseline-fluctuations, etc. We shall also consider different time pick-up techniques: waveform sampling (ADC and analog memories) versus Time-to-Digital conversion. Finally, we will discuss different examples and future avenues for fast photosensors and associated read-out electronics.