  We present results for time resolution studies performed on three different
scintillating plastics and two silicon photo-multipliers. These studies are
intended to determine whether scintillating plastic/silicon photo-multiplier
systems can be employed to provide a fast trigger signal for NICA's Multi
Purpose Detector (MPD). Our results show that such a system made of cells with
transverse dimensions of order of a few cm, coupled to silicon
photo-multipliers, provides a time resolution of about 50 ps, which can be even
further improved to attain the MPD trigger requirements of 20 ps.

Instrumentation and Detectors;High Energy Physics - Experiment;Nuclear Experiment