Glass Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber Research Articles

Operation of a low resistivity glass MRPC at high rate using ecological gas

The Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) is a gaseous detector that has low building costs and excellent timing performances. It is usually operated using a mixture of C2F4H2 and SF6, which have very high Global Warming Potential (GWP) values (1430 and 23,900 respectively). The ecological HFO-1234ze (C3F4H2), GWP <7, was investigated if it could be a viable alternative to the standard gas mixture. In this work, we present the performances of an MRPC with 10 gaps of 235μm width, built using 0.5 mm thick plates of low resistive glass. This detector was also operated using the standard gas mixture for comparison. At low particle rate, this detector reaches an efficiency of 98% and a time resolution of around 70 ps for the two mixtures of gases. We observed no degradation of its performances when a limited size of its active area is exposed to particle rates up to 63 kHz/cm2.

Feasibility study for Time Of Flight PET imaging based on six gap MRPC

The Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPCs) provide excellent timing as well as position resolutions at relatively low cost. Therefore, they can be used in medical imaging applications such as PET where precise timing is a crucial parameter of measurement. We have designed and fabricated several six-gap glass MRPCs and extensively studied their performance. In this paper, we describe the detector, the electronics and the data acquisition system of the setup. We present here the data analysis procedure and initial results of our studies to measure the absolute position of a radioactive source (22Na) using Time Of Flight (TOF) as well as the hit coordinate information and hence to demonstrate their potential applications in medical imaging. We also present the geant4 based simulation results on the efficiency of our detector as a function of the number of gaps and converter material thickness.

Study on cosmic test and QC method of high-rate MRPC for CBM-TOF

The CBM (Compressed Baryonic Matter) experiment constructed at FAIR (Facility for Anti-proton and Ion Research) at GSI, Darmstadt, Germany, will provide unique research opportunities to explore the phase diagram of nuclear matter. As one of the core detectors in the CBM experiment, the Time-of-Flight (TOF) system applies the MRPC (Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber) for a precise particle identification for all the incident charged hadrons. The CBM-TOF will be operated at an ion beam intensity up to 109/s, which means the particle fluxes on the TOF wall can reach an unprecedentedly high rate of 30 kHz/cm2. Almost half of the MRPC counters are from the inner region of the TOF wall, and they will be assembled with the low-resistive glass which enables them to work under such high rate. This is the first time of the large scale application of the low-resistive glass MRPCs into the nuclear and high-energy physics experiments. It is especially important to study on the production and test procedure to keep the good performance of all these counters. For this mass production, we have developed a set of specified manufacturing procedure and quality control method to guarantee the performance of all the counters. A newly developed method to check the uniformity of the gas gap with help of the projection imaging technique has been first applied. Until now, 73 MRPCs have been produced for the eTOF project in the BESII detector upgrade at STAR and the TOF system of mini-CBM. Tested by cosmic ray in a system based on TRB, all the produced counters show a stable performance of above 95% efficiency and below 90 ps time resolution. The study on the mass production of the low-resistive plate chamber will provide experience for wide application of MRPC into the high rate experiments in the future. In this paper, the counter design, manufacturing procedures, quality control methods and test results for this MRPC counter are described in a detailed way.

Status of technology of MRPC time of flight system

TOF (Time Of Flight) system based on MRPC (Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber) technology is widely used in modern physics experiments, and it also plays an important role in particle identification. With the increase of accelerator energy and luminosity, the TOF system is required to identify definite particles precisely under high rate environment. The MRPC technology TOF system can be defined as three generations. The first generation TOF is based on float glass MRPC and its time resolution is around 80 ps, but the rate is relatively low (typically lower than a few hundred Hz/cm2). The typical systems are TOF of RHIC-STAR, LHC-ALICE and BES III endcap. For the second generation TOF, its time resolution is in the same order with the first generation, but the rate capability is much higher. Its rate capability can reach 30 kHz/cm2. The typical experiment with this high rate TOF is FAIR-CBM. The biggest challenge is on the third generation TOF. For example, the momentum upper limit of K/PI separation is around 7 GeV/c for JLab-SoLID TOF system under high particle rate as high as 20 kHz/cm2, the time requirement is around 20 ps. The readout electronics of the first two generations is based on time over threshold method and pulse shape sampling technology will be used in the third generation TOF. In the same time, the machine learning technology is also designed to analyze the time performance. In this paper, we will describe the evolution of MRPC TOF technology and key technology of each generation TOF.

Time of flight technology based on multi-gap resistive plate chamber

Particle identification is very important in nuclear and particle physics experiments. Time of flight system (TOF) plays an important role in particle identification such as the separation of pion, kaon and proton. Multi-gap resistive plate chamber (MRPC) is a new kind of avalanche gas detector and it has excellent time resolution power. The intrinsic time resolution of narrow gap MRPC is less than 10 ps. So the MRPC technology TOF system is widely used in modern physics experiments for particle identification. With the increase of accelerator energy and luminosity, the TOF system is required to indentify definite particles precisely under high rate environment. The MRPC technology TOF system can be defined as three generations according to the timing and rate requirement. The first-generation TOF is based on the float glass MRPC and its time resolution is around 80 ps, but the rate is relatively low (typically lower than 100 Hz/cm&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;). The typical systems are TOF of RHIC-STAR, LHC-ALICE and BES III endcap. For the second-generation TOF, its time resolution has the same order as that for the first generation, but the rate capability is much higher. Its rate capability can reach 30 kHz/cm&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;. The typical experiment with this high rate TOF is FAIR-CBM. The biggest challenge is in the third-generation TOF. For example, the momentum upper limit of &lt;inline-formula&gt;&lt;tex-math id="M1"&gt;\begin{document}$ {\rm{K}}/{\text{π}}$\end{document}&lt;/tex-math&gt;&lt;alternatives&gt;&lt;graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="10-20182192_M1.jpg"/&gt;&lt;graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="10-20182192_M1.png"/&gt;&lt;/alternatives&gt;&lt;/inline-formula&gt; separation is around 7 GeV/c for JLab-SoLID TOF system under high particle rate as high as 20 kHz/cm&lt;sup&gt;2&lt;/sup&gt;, and the time requirement is around 20 ps. The readout electronics of first two generations is based on time over threshold method, and pulse shape sampling technology will be used in the third-generation TOF. In the same time, the machine learning technology LSTM network is also used to analyze the time performance. As a very successful sample, MRPC barrel TOF has been used in RHIC-STAR for more than ten years and many important physics results have been obtained. A prominent result is the observation of antimatter helium-4 nucleus. This discovery proves the existence of antimatter in the early universe. In this paper, we will describe the evolution of MRPC TOF technology and key technology of each generation of TOFs including MRPC detector and related electronics. The industrial and medical usage of MRPC are also introduced in the work finally.

High-rate glass MRPC for fixed target experiments at Nuclotron

A Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) equipped with heaters to improve the counting rate capability was designed for the BM@N experiment in Dubna. The measurements were performed using a muon beam at IHEP U-70 accelerator in Protvino. The MRPC at 40°C tolerates counting rate up to 6 kHz/cm2 with time resolution ∼65 ps and efficiency ∼95% which complies with the conditions of the experiment.

Study of ageing in glass MRPCs

The Multigap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) is used in many experiments due to its excellent efficiency and time resolution. We have studied the ageing effect on MRPC’s glass sheets. In particular we analysed an MRPC built with glass sheets that had been used for ten years in a cosmic ray study. We extracted the glass sheets from these old chambers and built a new MRPC chamber. We used different configurations; significant changes in the efficiency and time resolution have been observed.

Design, development and performance study of six-gap glass MRPC detectors

The Multigap Resistive Plate Chambers (MRPCs) are gas ionization detectors with multiple gas sub-gaps made of resistive electrodes. The high voltage (HV) is applied on the outer surfaces of outermost resistive plates only, while the interior plates are left electrically floating. The presence of multiple narrow sub--gaps with high electric field results in faster signals on the outer electrodes, thus improving the detector's time resolution. Due to their excellent performance and relatively low cost, the MRPC detector has found potential application in Time-of-Flight (TOF) systems. Here we present the design, fabrication, optimization of the operating parameters such as the HV, the gas mixture composition, and, performance of six--gap glass MRPC detectors of area 27cm $\times$ 27 cm, which are developed in order to find application as trigger detectors, in TOF measurement etc. The design has been optimized with unique spacers and blockers to ensure a proper gas flow through the narrow sub-gaps, which are 250 $\mu$m wide. The gas mixture consisting of R134A, Isobutane and SF$_{6}$, and the fraction of each constituting gases has been optimized after studying the MRPC performance for a set of different concentrations. The counting efficiency of the MRPC is about 95% at $17.9$ kV. At the same operating voltage, the time resolution, after correcting for the walk effect, is found to be about $219$ ps.

A thin float glass MRPC for the outer region of CBM-TOF wall

A Multi-gap Resistive Plate Chamber (MRPC) made out of thin float glass is proposed for the outer region of the time of flight (TOF) system for the Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at FAIR. Usually MRPCs are assembled with ordinary glass plates of 0.5mm or more thickness, but their rate capability is less than the CBM requirement (1.5kHz/cm2). There are two ways to improve the rate capability. The first way is to reduce the bulk resistivity of the glass plates. The second is to reduce the thickness of the glass plates. Tsinghua University has made significant progress in the development of low resistive glass and high rate MRPCs. In this paper we report on three MRPCs produced with float glass plates of 0.7mm, 0.5mm and 0.35mm thickness. Tests with cosmic rays and X-rays were performed at Tsinghua University. The results show that thin float glass MRPCs work well and have the rate capability necessary to meet the demands of the CBM-TOF outer region. Further studies were performed using a continuous 1GeV deuterium beam at the Nuclotron accelerator at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR). Time resolution of about 70ps and efficiency higher than 90% were obtained for flux densities up to 3kHz/cm2, exceeding the requirement for the CBM-TOF outer region.

Studying the counting rate capability of a glass multigap resistive plate chamber at an increased operating temperature

It is shown that a multigap resistive plate chamber made of commercial float glass is capable of sustaining high counting rates at an increased operating temperature. Two glass chambers were investigated on the test beamline of the U-70 accelerator at the Institute for High Energy Physics. The required radiation flux density at the detector was produced by means of radioactive sources. The time resolution of 80 ps or better was attained at a rate of ∼20 kHz/cm2 and an operating temperature of 45°C.

Aging test of a real-size high rate MRPC for CBM-TOF wall

A new kind of low-resistivity glass has been developed. Its volume resistivity is on the order of 1010 Ω cm and multi-gap resistive plate chambers (MRPCs), once assembled with it, can be operated at a charged particle flux in excess of 25 kHz/cm2, with very small charge build-up at the plates. This new technology has a wide range of application in high energy physics experiments such as FAIR-CBM, LHC-ATLAS or Jlab-SOLID, to mention some. In this paper we report on results related to its long-term behavior (aging). A 6 × 2-pad CBM module has been irradiated by X-rays at a mips-equivalent flux of 15 kHz/cm2, for 300 hours and for a released charge totaling 0.22 C (50 mC/cm2). Tested in an electron beam before and after exposure, no degradation of the detector performances could be appreciated. As expected, compared to common glass MRPCs, the newly developed high rate counter also responds faster to sudden irradiation.