A Highly-Integrated Receiver Chip for the JUNO Experiment

Abstract

The Jiangmen Underground Observatory (JUNO) is a planned neutrino experiment currently being built in Jiangmen, China, with a baseline of 53 km to two nuclear reactors and an expected data taking start in 2020. It is a multi-purpose detector with its main goal to determine the neutrino mass hierarchy. The neutrinos will be measured with a detector based on a sphere filled with 20 kton of liquid scintillator. The light emitted from the scintillator is observed by ~18 000 large (20 inch) photomultipliers (PMTs) and ~34 000 small (3 inch) PMTs. The former are designed as intelligent units with their control and readout embedded into the casing. To digitize the signals with a sampling rate of 1 Gsamples/s, a highly-integrated solution is under development – called Vulcan – that includes the analog to digital converter (ADC) and the analog frontend without the need for external components. After digitization, the digital part of Vulcan prepares the data stream for further data management in an FPGA. An overview of the concept and design of Vulcan will be presented along with measurements of the first prototype