A First Mass Production of Gas Electron Multipliers

TL;DR

This paper reports the first successful mass production of Gas Electron Multipliers (GEMs) using automated manufacturing, demonstrating their potential for high-volume, low-cost radiation detection in various physics applications.

Contribution

It introduces a fully automated production process for GEMs, enabling scalable, reproducible fabrication of high-quality detectors at low cost.

Findings

Produced approximately 2,000 GEMs with automated process

GEMs exhibit optimal properties as radiation detectors

Demonstrated industrial manufacturing capability

Abstract

We report on the manufacture of a first batch of approximately 2,000 Gas Electron Multipliers (GEMs) using 3M's fully automated roll to roll flexible circuit production line. This process allows low-cost, reproducible fabrication of a high volume of GEMs of dimensions up to 30$\times$30 cm$^{2}$. First tests indicate that the resulting GEMs have optimal properties as radiation detectors. Production techniques and preliminary measurements of GEM performance are described. This now demonstrated industrial capability should help further establish the prominence of micropattern gas detectors in accelerator based and non-accelerator particle physics, imaging and photodetection.