Fiscs Description

Fiscs are mobile scintillator filaments, normally 200 microns wide and 4 mm thick along the beam. Charged particles that traverse the scintillator produce scintillation light that is collected by two photomultipliers in coincidence. The scintillator can be moved and the signals are read out and counted by the beam control system. They serve to make beam profiles.

Normally Fiscs take one position per SPS cycle. Therefore a profile is only obtained after a number of bursts. Recently 'Fast Fiscs' have been installed that provide a profile after one single burst. Some fiscs are equipped with pulse height analysis electronics (QVT) that allow to distinguish lighter fragments (smaller Z) in heavy ion beams.