Advances in Thick GEM-like gaseous electron multipliers. Part I: atmospheric pressure operation
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Thick GEM-like (THGEM) gaseous electron multipliers are made of standard printed-circuit board perforated with sub-millimeter diameter holes, etched at their rims. Effective gas multiplication factors of 100000 and 10000000 and fast pulses in the few nanosecond rise-time scale were reached in single- and cascaded double-THGEM elements, in atmospheric-pressure standard gas mixtures with single photoelectrons. High single-electron detection efficiency is obtained in photon detectors combining THGEMs and semitransparent UV-sensitive CsI photocathodes or reflective ones deposited on the top THGEM face; the latter benefits of a reduced sensitivity to ionizing background radiation. Stable operation was recorded with photoelectron fluxes exceeding MHz/mm2. The properties and some potential applications of these simple and robust multipliers are discussed.
41 pages, 27 figures. Submitted to Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A, Dec 21, 2005
41 pages, 27 figures. Submitted to Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A, Dec 21, 2005