A large dynamic range readout design for the plastic scintillator detector of DAMPE

A large dynamic range is required by the Plastic Scintillator Detector (PSD) of DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) to detect particles from electron to heavy ions with Z≤20Z≤20. To expand the dynamic range, the readout design based on the double-dynodes signal extraction from the photomultiplier tube has been proposed and adopted by PSD. To verify this design, a prototype detector module has been constructed and tested with cosmic ray and relativistic ion beam. The results match with the estimation and the readout unit could easily cover the required dynamic range of about 4 orders of magnitude.