The Resistive-Plate Well With Argon Mixtures A Robust Gaseous Radiation Detector

A thin single-element THGEM-based, Resistive-Plate WELL (RPWELL) detector was operated with 150 GeV/c muon and pion beams in Ne/(5%CH4), Ar/(5%CH4) and Ar/(7%CO2); signals were recorded with 1 cm(2) square pads and SRS/APV25 electronics. Detection efficiency values greater than 98% were reached in all the gas mixtures, at average pad multiplicity of 1.2. The use of the 10(9) Omega cm resistive plate resulted in a completely discharge-free operation also in intense pion beams. The efficiency remained essentially constant at 98-99% up to fluxes of similar to 10(4) Hz/cm(2), dropping by a few % when approaching 10(5) Hz/cm(2). These results pave the way towards cost-effective, robust, efficient, large-scale detectors for a variety of applications in future particle, astro-particle and applied fields. A potential target application is digital hadron calorimetry. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.