Towards high-rate RPC-based thermal neutron detectors using low-resistivity electrodes

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that using low-resistivity electrodes in $^{10}$B-RPCs significantly enhances their counting rate capabilities, reaching over 30,000 Hz/cm², which is promising for high-rate neutron detection applications.

Contribution

The paper introduces experimental results showing that low-resistivity electrodes improve the rate performance of $^{10}$B-RPCs compared to standard float glass.

Findings

Low-resistivity electrodes enable higher counting rates.

Rate linearity maintained up to high flux levels.

Maximum rate exceeded 3×10^4 Hz/cm² with low-resistivity materials.

Abstract

We present experimental results on the counting rate measurements for several single-gap $^{10}$B lined resistive plate chambers ($^{10}$B-RPCs) with anodes made from standard float glass, low resistivity glass and ceramic. The measurements were performed at the V17 monochromatic neutron beamline (3.35 \.A) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. For the $^{10}$B-RPCs with 0.28 mm thick float glass a maximum counting rate density of about $8\times 10^{3}$ $Hz/cm^{2}$ was obtained. In the case of low resistivity glass and ceramic, the counting rate density did not deviate from linear dependence on the neutron flux up to the maximum flux available at this beamline and exceeded a value of $3\times 10^{4}$ $Hz/cm^{2}$.