he DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is a general purposed satellite-borne high energy γ−ray and cosmic ray detector, and among the scientific objectives of DAMPE are the searches for the origin of cosmic rays and an understanding of Dark Matter particles. As one of the four detectors in DAMPE, the Plastic Scintillator Detector (PSD) plays an important role in the particle charge measurement and the photons/electrons separation. The PSD has 82 modules, each consists of a long organic plastic scintillator bar and two PMTs at both ends for readout, in two layers and covers an overall active area larger than 82 cm × 82 cm. It can identify the charge states for relativistic ions from H to Fe, and the detector efficiency for Z=1 particles can reach 0.9999. The PSD has been successfully launched with DAMPE on Dec. 17, 2015. In this paper, the design, the assembly, the qualification tests of the PSD and some of the performance measured on the ground have been described in detail.
@article{arxiv.1703.00098,
title = {The Plastic Scintillator Detector at DAMPE},
author = {Yuhong Yu and Zhiyu Sun and Hong Su and Yaqing Yang and Jie Liu and Jie Kong and Guoqing Xiao and Xinwen Ma and Yong Zhou and Hongyun Zhao and Dan Mo and Yongjie Zhang and Peng Yang and Junling Chen and Haibo Yang and Fang Fang and Shengxia Zhang and HuiJun Yao and Jinglai Duan and Xiaoyang Niu and Zhengguo Hu and Zhaomin Wang and Xiaohui Wang and Jingzhe Zhang and Wenqiang Liu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.00098},
year = {2017}
}