Development of a Fast Timing Counter with a Monolithic MPPC Array

We developed a timing counter with a monolithic array of multi-pixel photon counters (MPPCs) coupled to a
$10 \times 12.6 \times 24~\hbox{mm}^3$
plastic scintillator. A signal of the MPPC was processed and its fast components were amplified by a developed readout circuit to improve the timing. The performances of the counter were evaluated by electrons with energies of 855 MeV. A set of the MPPC based scintillation counter and a PMT based reference counter achieved the TOF resolution less than 80 ps (
$\sigma $
). The gain was almost constant up to the count rate of 170 kHz.