Making spherical GEMs

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel, cost-effective method for manufacturing spherical GEM foils, enabling the creation of a spherical gaseous detector with improved spatial resolution and rate capability, suitable for x-ray diffraction applications.

Contribution

It presents the first method to produce spherical GEMs and outlines plans for a fully spherical detector with enhanced performance capabilities.

Findings

Successfully developed a method for spherical GEM fabrication.

Demonstrated potential for improved spatial resolution in x-ray diffraction.

Outlined plans for a spherical detector with high rate capability.

Abstract

We developed a method to make GEM foils with a spherical geometry. Tests of this procedure and with the resulting spherical GEMs are presented. Together with a spherical drift electrode, a spherical conversion gap for x-rays can be formed. This would eliminate the parallax error in an x-ray diffraction setup, which limits the spatial resolution at wide diffraction angles. The method is inexpensive and flexible towards possible changes in the design. We show advanced plans to make a prototype of an entirely spherical triple-GEM detector, including a spherical readout structure. This detector will have a superior position resolution, also at wide diffraction angles, and a high rate capability. A completely spherical gaseous detector has never been made before.