OFFSET: Optical Fiber Folded Scintillating Extended Tracker

The OFFSET collaboration aims at the development of a novel system for tracking charged particles, designed to achieve real-time imaging, large detection areas, and a high spatial resolution especially suitable for use in medical diagnostics. This paper presents the first prototype of this tracker, having a 20×20 cm2 sensitive area made by two crossed ribbons of 500μm square scintillating fibers. The track position information is extracted in real time using a reduced number of read-out channels to obtain very large detection area at moderate cost and complexity. The performance of the tracker was investigated using β sources, cosmic rays and a 62 MeV proton beam.