Detection of Alpha Particles and Low Energy Gamma Rays by Thermo-Bonded Micromegas in Xenon Gas

TL;DR

This paper evaluates a thermo-bonded Micromegas detector's ability to detect alpha particles and low-energy gamma rays in xenon gas, demonstrating its potential for rare event physics experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel thermo-bonded Micromegas structure and assesses its performance in pure xenon at room temperature for rare event detection.

Findings

Gas gains over 200 at pressures up to 3 atm

Detection of gamma rays down to 8 keV

Potential application in dark matter and double beta decay experiments

Abstract

Micromegas is a type of micro-pattern gaseous detector currently under R&D for applications in rare event search experiments. Here we report the performance of a Micromegas structure constructed with a micromesh thermo-bonded to a readout plane, motivated by its potential application in two-phase xenon detectors for dark matter and neutrinoless double beta decay experiments. The study is carried out in pure xenon at room temperature. Measurements with alpha particles from the Americium-241 source showed that gas gains larger than 200 can be obtained at xenon pressure up to 3 atm. Gamma rays down to 8 keV were observed with such a device.