Large area position sensitive β-detector

A new conceptual design of a large area electron detector, which is position and energy sensitive, was developed. This detector is designed for beta decay energies up to 4 MeV, but in principle can be re-designed for higher energies. The detector incorporates one large plastic scintillator and, in general, a limited number of photomultipliers (7 presently). The current setup was designed and constructed after an extensive Geant4 simulation study. By comparison of a single hit light distribution between the various photomultipliers to a pre-measured accurate position-response map, the anticipated position resolution is around 5 mm. The first benchmark experiments have been conducted in order to calibrate and confirm the position resolution of the detector. The new method, results of the first test experiments and comparison to simulations are presented.