Radiation detectors are at the heart of most high energy physics experiments, as well as many civil applications for medical imaging and homeland security.
Our group continues a decades long tradition of R&D of gaseous detectors, in particular Micro-Pattern Gaseous Detectors (MPGD) within the DRD1 collaboration (ex RD51 collaboration) at CERN, with a special focus on THick Gaseus Electron Multiplier (THGEM).
This family of detectors is suitable for a variety of applications. Current examples are CsI-coated cascaded-THGEM UV-photon detectors for Ring-Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detectors, replacing advantageously wire-chambers; cryogenic gaseous photomultipliers for recording scintillation-light in noble-liquid detectors for future dark-matter experiments, multi-ton neutrino experiments medical imaging cameras and in combined neutron/gamma inspection systems; fast-neutron detectors with dedicated converter-foils and thin THGEM-based sampling elements, developed mainly for digital hadronic calorimeters (DHCAL), in view of their potential deployment in high-energy physics experiments in future linear colliders.
Over the past few years we have concentrated on the development of novel THGEM multipliers with electrodes made of resistive materials. We focused on thin, single-stage, configurations and succeed demonstrating stable operation conditions, also in cryogenic environments, which is usually hard to achieve. We assembled and tested DHCAL prototypes and readout of the size of a realistic system (several layers of 50x50cm2).
Currently we keep investigating new resistive materials and their effect on the detector performance, both at room temperature and at cryogenic ones. This, together with proper modeling and simulations allows for a deeper understanding of the physical processes governing the detector behavior.
Moreover, we are designing and constructing a gaseous time projection chamber (TPC) with optical readout which will be used to record the products of fast neutron on target experiments at SARAF, for the measurement of reaction cross sections which are relevant to nuclear physics and astrophysics.
