Study of the timing response of SiPM in direct detection of charged particles for the TOF System of ALICE 3

Silicon PhotoMultipliers (SiPMs) are an established photon detectors of choice in many areas, from LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) applications to Time-of-Flight (TOF) medical techniques. In this thesis, SiPMs are studied for their potential application also in direct detection of charged particles. The study showed promising results. Through Cherenkov light emitted in the protection layer above the sensor, the SiPM shows a high detection efficiency and an excellent intrinsic time resolution which improves thanks to the several SPADs signal associated to a single charged particle. The SPAD (Single Photon Avalanche Diode) is the SiPM unit microcell. For a charged particle, more than 6 SPADs may have signals giving a time resolution of around 20 ps together with an increased detection efficiency, if compared with a simple geometrical efficiency. The excellent time resolution of SiPMs reported in this thesis paves the way to their application in different research areas where a high precision timing information is essential: from medical and engineering applications, to experiments in space and multi-purpose detectors at colliders. Indeed, the SiPM represents a possible candidate for the future ALICE 3 experiment at the LHC proposed for Run 5: this experiment, which will study mainly high energy proton-proton and ion collisions, is planned to be a compact multi-purpose detector that features excellent vertexing, tracking and timing capabilities in order to do Particle IDentification (PID). In this contest, a new concept of a TOF and RICH (Ring-Imaging Cherenkov) detectors merged into one could benefit from the SiPM capability of single photon detection and charged track timing response.