A complete MC optical photons tracking simulation of Plastic Scintillator Detectors for the next generation of satellite experiments

Plastic scintillators are widely used for anti-coincidence systems and for the identi cation of charged cosmic-ray nuclei in satellite experiments. For this reason, a plastic scintillator detector (PSD) should have a high detection e ciency for charged cosmic rays and a very good capability of measuring charges. We implemented a full and customizable simulation tool to investigate the performance of a PSD coupled to Silicon Photomultipliers. The overall performance of the detector is studied by tracking optical photons produced inside the scintillator. The simulation will be used for the design of a PSD for future space experiments, such as HERD, AMEGO, e-Astrogam. In this work we investigated in detail the e ect of Birks' saturation in the discrimination of charged ions up to iron nuclei. We will show the comparison between simulations and measurements conducted on prototype scintillator tiles.