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.
@article{arxiv.physics/0601115,
title = {Advances in Thick GEM-like gaseous electron multipliers. Part I: atmospheric pressure operation},
author = {C. Shalem and R. Chechik and A. Breskin and K. Michaeli},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0601115},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
41 pages, 27 figures. Submitted to Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A, Dec 21, 2005