The Resistive-Plate WELL with Argon mixtures – A robust gaseous radiation detector

• Published in: Nuclear instruments & methods in physics research. Section A, Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment Accelerators, spectrometers, detectors and associated equipment, 2017-02, Vol.845 (C), p.262-265
• Main Authors: Moleri, Luca, Amaro, Fernando Domingues, Arazi, Lior, Azevedo, Carlos Davide Rocha, Oliveri, Eraldo, Pitt, Michael, Schaarschmidt, Jana, Shaked-Renous, Dan, dos Santos, Joaquim Marques Ferreira, Veloso, João Filipe Calapez de Albuquerque, Breskin, Amos, Bressler, Shikma
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Calorimetery; Micropattern Gaseous detectors; THGEM
• ISSN: 0168-9002; 1872-9576
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nima.2016.06.009

A thin single-element THGEM-based, Resistive-Plate WELL (RPWELL) detector was operated with 150GeV/c muon and pion beams in Ne/(5%CH4), Ar/(5%CH4) and Ar/(7%CO2); signals were recorded with 1cm2 square pads and SRS/APV25 electronics. Detection efficiency values greater than 98% were reached in all the gas mixtures, at average pad multiplicity of 1.2. The use of the 109Ωcm resistive plate resulted in a completely discharge-free operation also in intense pion beams. The efficiency remained essentially constant at 98–99% up to fluxes of ∼104Hz/cm2, dropping by a few % when approaching 105Hz/cm2. These results pave the way towards cost-effective, robust, efficient, large-scale detectors for a variety of applications in future particle, astro-particle and applied fields. A potential target application is digital hadron calorimetry.