Readout of scintillating fibers by avalanche photodiodes operated in the normal avalanche mode

We have evaluated the performance of avalanche photodiodes (APDs) as the photon detectors for scintillating fibers. The signal-to-noise ratios were estimated and experimentally measured with commercially available APDs coupled to 3HF scintillating fibers. Following those basic studies, we have built a prototype of a scintillating fiber hodoscope read out by the APDs. The performance of this prototype is also described. Throughout this work, we considered only the APDs operated in the normal avalanche mode avoiding the problematic Geiger mode operation. In the measurements, APDs were operated at room temperature without using any cooling system.