Following the experience of the SiPM based hadron calorimeter (AHCAL), the CALICE collaboration started to construct an electromagnetic calorimeter prototype with similar technology. This prototype consists of a sampling structure of scintillator strips (10x45 mm^2, 3 mm thickness) and Tungsten.
The university partners of our group from Shinshu, Japan, are contributing to this effort, which uses Hamamatsu MPPCs for detecting the scintillating light. This prototype provides the first large-scale test of MPPCs, and the first comparison between direct and wavelength shifting fiber mediated readout of scintillator tiles, in calorimetry application. In particular the issue of non-uniform response of the scintillator tiles has to be investigated for both readout configurations.

Together with the university of Shinshu other institutes from Japan and Korea are contributing to the constraction of the SCECAL.

The detector has been tested at DESY during Feb.-Mar. 2007 using the same readout electronics employed in the hadronic calorimeter prototype. The DESY part of the group is responsible for the integration of the detector in the readout chain and for the support at the DESY test beam.