High gain operation of GEM-like detectors in air and some practical devices exploiting this feature

by Vladimir Peskov (Pole Universitaire Leonardo de Vinci)

Friday 27 Jul 2007, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

13/2-005 (CERN)

We have discovered that hole-type gaseous detectors, for example thick GEMs or GEMs with resistive electrodes can operate at high gas gains (10⁴) in air or in gas mixtures with air. They can also operate in a cascaded mode or be combined with other detectors. This opens new avenues in their applications. Several prototypes of these devices based on new detectors and oriented on practical applications were developed and successfully tested: a detector of soft X-rays and alpha particles, a flame sensor, a detector of dangerous gases. The main advantages of these detectors are their simplicity, low cost and high sensitivity. For example, due to the avalanche multiplication, the detectors of flames and dangerous gases have a sensitivity of 10-100 times higher than commercial devices. We believe that new detectors will have a great future.