Study of ion feedback in multiGEM structures.pdfVIP

Presented at 8th International Conference on Instrumentation for Colliding Beam Physics, Novosibirsk, Febuary 28- March 6, 2002 E-print physics/ … Submitted to Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A Study of ion feedback in multi-GEM structures A. Bondar, A. Buzulutskov ∗, L. Shekhtman, A. Vasilj ev Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia Abstract We study the feedback of positive ions in triple and quadruple Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) detectors. The effects of GEM hole diameter, detector gain, applied voltages, number of GEMs and other parameters on ion feedback are investigated in detail. In particular, it was found that ion feedback is independent of the gas mixture and the pressure. In the optimized multi-GEM structure, the ion feedback current can be suppressed down to 0.5% of the anode current, at a drift field of 0.1 kV/cm and gain of 104 . A simple model of ion feedback in multi-GEM structures is suggested. The results obtained are relevant to the performance of time proj ection chambers and gas photomultipliers. Key words: Gas Electron Multipliers; ion feedback. PA Cs: 29.40C. photomultipliers (induced by ion impact) [4] 1. Introduction and to prevent the field distortion in Time Proj ection Chambers (TPC) (induced by ion In recent years there have been considerable migration into the drift volume) [9]. advances in GEM (Gas Electron Multiplier [1]) The latter feature is of primary importance detectors in the field of p