In Pursuit of Femtosecond Timing with High-Bandwidth Ionizing-Particle Signal Detection

High-frequency ionizing-particle signal detection via the integration of fast sensors with application specific integrated circuit chips (ASICs) is currently limited to below the GHz range. The AAD (Advanced Accelerator Diagnostics) Collaboration is currently developing an ionizing-particle detection system using thinned monocrystalline diamond as a fast sensor, read out by a prototype ASIC known as the FastPulse Precision Sampler (FPS) ASIC. The FPS prototype features a 45-element 40 GS/s switched-capacitor array and designed to operate in the 5-10 GHz regime. Characterization of the FPS ASIC is currently underway at the SCIPP laboratory at UC Santa Cruz. In this talk, I will present results on the electronic timing jitter that can potentially be achieved with the fast, low-noise readout system, suggesting that femtosecond timing may be possible with this system.