Viability of Determining Ion Charge and Velocity Utilizing a Single Silicon Timepix Detector

The emergence of the Timepix technology, a class of hybrid pixel readout Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC), has provided an opportunity for the evolution of small, low-power, active radiation detectors which have unprecedented capability. The application of this technology to measurements in the space radiation environment and to radiation monitoring for manned spaceflight is an ongoing effort, and the space exploration application imposes the need to minimize the mass and power draw of the hardware. To those ends, an evaluation of the capability of a single Timepix detector to accomplish the identification of the incident radiation field in terms of ion charge and velocity is critical to providing a characterization of the radiation environment that is independent of dosimetric endpoint. The goal of this work is to present the progress made toward individual ion identification using a single silicon Timepix detector along with an evaluation of the proposed methods and algorithms used to achieve this aim.Physics, Department o