This paper presents the design and electrical test results of a low-noise front-end chip (named Topmetal-S) in a High-pressure Time Projection Chamber (TPC) for searching the neutrinoless double beta decay. The Topmetal-S has been fabricated in a 130 nm CMOS technology. The proposed front-end chip consists of a charge collection electrode, a Charge Sensitive Amplifier (CSA) and peripheral circuits. The test results indicate that the CSA features an input linear dynamic range of approximately 6.64 fC, a charge-conversion gain of about 220 mV/fC and an Equivalent Noise Charge (ENC) of approximately 115 e ^- after a digital trapezoidal pulse shaper.

The cool storage ring (CSR) external-target experiment (CEE) will be the first large-scale nuclear physics experiment at the Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL). The beam monitor, designed to measure the lateral position of each beam particle, will improve the precision of primary vertex reconstruction otherwise determined by the time projection chamber (TPC) and multi-wire drift chambers (MWDCs). The beam monitor mainly contains two gaseous ionization sub-detectors, each measuring one lateral coordinate of the beam. The design requirements include the spatial resolution of \(<50\) \(\mu\)m, the two-particle separation capability of \(<1\) \(\mu\)s, the rate capability of \(>10^{6}\) pps, and small material budget. It features novel front-end pixel chips for both charge sensing and readout functions. The first prototype, utilizing the common-purpose Topmetal-II-chips, has been developed and tested; the second one, deploying the custom-designed Topmetal-CEEv1 chips, is currently being assembled. In this paper we will present the detector specifications, design and test of the prototypes, in particular the charge sensing and readout chips.

A gaseous beam monitor utilizing gas electron multiplier (GEM) and pixel sensors is being developed for the Cooling Storage Ring (CSR) External-target Experiment (CEE) at Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL). The beam monitor is mainly used to track each beam particle, providing an accurate reconstruction of the primary vertex of the collision. Two generations of the pixel sensors (named Topmetal-CEE) were produced, with the second generation's performance improving over the first one. The design and performance of the prototype are described in the paper. Characterization of the prototype with heavy-ion beams and laser beams are presented, showing a spatial resolution better than 50 μm and a time resolution better than 15 ns.