Proton response of CEPA4: A novel LaBr3(Ce)–LaCl3(Ce) phoswich array for high-energy gamma and proton spectroscopy

A new phoswich array, for the detection of high-energy protons and gamma rays from nuclear reactions, has been built. This new detector consists of four individual closely packed scintillator detectors, each of them made of 4 cm of LaBr3(Ce) and 6 cm of LaCl3(Ce) in phoswich configuration (optically coupled and with a common readout). In this paper we report on the results of a beam test performed at the Bronowice Cyclotron Centre (CCB) in Krakow, showing the response of this versatile instrument to high energy protons (70–230 MeV). Furthermore, for the first time we prove that we can reconstruct the original energy of fast protons (E>200MeV) which pass through the total length of the crystal while still retaining a good energy resolution.