Gaseous Detectors: recent developments and applications

TL;DR

Gaseous detectors, especially Micro-Pattern Gas Detectors (MPGDs), have evolved significantly, offering high resolution, radiation resistance, and versatile applications across physics, medicine, and industry, driven by technological advances and innovative designs.

Contribution

This paper reviews recent developments in gaseous detector technologies, highlighting the transition from wire structures to MPGDs and their expanding applications across multiple scientific fields.

Findings

MPGDs offer high spatial and time resolution.

Micro-pattern structures enable industrial production.

Applications now include medical physics and neutrino detection.

Abstract

Since long time, the compelling scientific goals of future high energy physics experiments were a driving factor in the development of advanced detector technologies. A true innovation in detector instrumentation concepts came in 1968, with the development of a fully parallel readout for a large array of sensing elements - the Multiwire Proportional Chamber (MWPC), which earned Georges Charpak a Nobel prize in physics in 1992. Since that time radiation detection and imaging with fast gaseous detectors, capable of economically covering large detection volume with low mass budget, have been playing an important role in many fields of physics. Advances in photo-lithography and micro-processing techniques in the chip industry during the past decade triggered a major transition in the field of gas detectors from wire structures to Micro-Pattern Gas Detector (MPGD) concepts, revolutionizing cell size limitations for many gas detector applications. The high radiation resistance and excellent spatial and time resolution make them an invaluable tool to confront future detector challenges at the next generation of colliders. The design of the new micro-pattern devices appears suitable for industrial production. Novel structures where MPGDs are directly coupled to the CMOS pixel readout represent an exciting field allowing timing and charge measurements as well as precise spatial information in 3D. Originally developed for the high energy physics, MPGD applications has expanded to nuclear physics, UV and visible photon detection, astroparticle and neutrino physics, neutron detection and medical physics.