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

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a robust, efficient, and discharge-free Resistive-Plate WELL detector using argon-based gas mixtures, achieving over 98% detection efficiency with stable performance under high particle flux, suitable for large-scale applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel RPWELL detector with argon mixtures that operates discharge-free and maintains high efficiency at high fluxes, advancing gaseous detector technology.

Findings

Detection efficiency >98% in all gas mixtures

Discharge-free operation at high particle fluxes

Stable efficiency up to 10^4 Hz/cm^2

Abstract

A thin single-element THGEM-based, Resistive-Plate WELL (RPWELL) detector was operated with 150 GeV/c muon and pion beams in Ne/(5%CH$_4$), Ar/(5%CH$_4$) and Ar/(7%CO$_2$); signals were recorded with 1 cm$^2$ 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 10$^9${\Omega}cm 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 $\sim$10$^4$Hz/cm$^2$, dropping by a few % when approaching 10$^5$ Hz/cm$^2$. 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.