Proton computed tomography readout testing and detector design

Abstract

Proton computed tomography is a way of using protons instead of x-rays to make a three dimensional image of a scanned object. This will result in more accurate predictions for proton treatments and less radiation in the surrounding tissue. This will be realized through the use of an array of particle detector chips developed at for the ALICE ITS upgrade at CERN. This thesis covers work done in chips testing and detector design specica tion, the most important of which is how the test code work and what the results tell us. This is then considered to give the minimum and basic specications for the detector and its readout electronics. Understanding the ALPIDE is of major importance to the PCT project and is one of the reasons for this thesis. Therefore test were done with the ALPIDE test software to get data from the chip. The software was also used to do tests with radiation sources which gives good insight into what particle hits look like.