Study of glass properties as electrode for RPC

TL;DR

This paper systematically characterizes glass electrode materials for Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs), comparing their properties and performance to inform large-scale deployment in neutrino detection.

Contribution

It provides detailed material characterization and performance comparison of glasses from two manufacturers for RPC electrodes.

Findings

Glass properties vary between manufacturers.

RPC performance correlates with glass characteristics.

Material selection impacts detector efficiency.

Abstract

Operation and performance of the Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) mostly depend on the quality and characteristics of the electrode materials. The India-based Neutrino Observatory collaboration has chosen glass RPCs as the active detector elements for its Iron Calorimeter detector and is going to deploy RPCs in an unprecedented scale. Therefore, it is imperative that we study the electrode material aspects in detail. We report here, systematic characterization studies on the glasses from two manufacturers. RPC detectors were built using these glasses and performances of the same were compared with their material properties.