No Arabic abstract
Electroluminescence produced during avalanche development in gaseous avalanche detectors is an useful information for triggering, calorimetry and tracking in gaseous detectors. Noble gases present high electroluminescence yields, emitting mainly in the VUV region. The photons can provide signal readout if appropriate photosensors are used. Micropattern gaseous detectors are good candidates for signal amplification in high background and/or low rate experiments due to their high electroluminescence yields and radiopurity. In this work, the VUV light responses of the Gas Electron Multiplier and of the Micro-Hole Strip Plate, working with pure xenon, are simulated and studied in detail using a new and versatile C++ toolkit. It is shown that the solid angle subtended by a photosensor placed below the microstructures depends on the operating conditions. The obtained absolute EL yields, determined for different gas pressures and as functions of the applied voltage, are compared with those determined experimentally.
Currently a revolution is taking place in the development of gaseous detectors of photons and particles. Parallel plate-type and wire-type detectors which dominated for years in high energy and space flight experiments are now being replaced by recently invented Micropattern gaseous detectors. We will now review the main achievements in this field and discuss the most promising directions in future developments and applications.
Identification of high momentum hadrons at the future EIC is crucial, gaseous RICH detectors are therefore viable option. Compact collider setups impose to construct RICHes with small radiator length, hence significantly limiting the number of detected photons. More photons can be detected in the far UV region, using a windowless RICH approach. QE of CsI degrades under strong irradiation and air contamination. Nanodiamond based photocathodes (PCs) are being developed as an alternative to CsI. Recent development of layers of hydrogenated nanodiamond powders as an alternative photosensitive material and their performance, when coupled to the THick Gaseous Electron Multipliers (THGEM)-based detectors, are the objects of an ongoing R&D. We report about the initial phase of our studies.
A systematic study is performed to measure the ion backflow fraction of the GEM detectors. The effects of different voltage configurations and Ar/CO_2 gas mixtures, in ratios of 70:30, 80:20 and 90:10, on positive ion fraction are investigated in detail. Moreover, a comparative study is performed between single and quadruple GEM detectors.The ion current with detector effective gain is measured with various field configurations and with three proportions of gas mixtures. The ion backflow fraction for the GEM is substantially reduced with the lower drift field. A minimum ion backflow fraction of 18 % is achieved in the single GEM detector with Ar/CO_2 80:20 gas mixture, however, a minimum ion backflow fraction of 3.5 %, 3.0%, and 3.8 % are obtained for a drift field of 0.1kV/cm with Ar/CO_2 70:30, 80:20 and 90:10 gas mixtures, respectively for quadrupole GEM detector. Similar values of effective gain and ion backflow fraction have been found by calculating the current from pulse height spectrum method, obtained in the Multi Channel Analyser.
We report on the progress in the study of cascaded GEM and GEM/MHSP gas avalanche photomultipliers operating at atmospheric pressure, with CsI and bialkali photocathodes. They have single-photon sensitivity, ns time resolution and good localization properties. We summarize operational aspects and results, with the highlight of a high-gain stable gated operation of a visible-light device. Of particular importance are the results of a recent ion-backflow reduction study in different cascaded multipliers, affecting the detectors stability and the photocathodes liftime. We report on the significant progress in ion-blocking and provide first results on bialkali-photocathode aging under gas multiplication.
The paper summarizes our latest progress in the development of newly introduced micro pattern gaseous detectors with resistive electrodes. These resistive electrodes protect the detector and the front-end electronics in case of occasional discharges and thus make the detectors very robust and reliable in operation. As an example, we describe in greater detail a new recently developed GEM-like detector, fully spark-protected with electrodes made of resistive kapton. We discovered that all resistive layers used in these studies (including kapton), that are coated with photosensitive layers, such as CsI, can be used as efficient photo cathodes for detectors operating in a pulse counting mode. We describe the first applications of such detectors combined with CsI or SbCs photo cathodes for the detection of UV photons at room and cryogenic temperatures.