Thermal bonding method for fabricating Micromegas detector and its applications

Over the past decade, thermal bonding method (TBM) has been developed for the efficient fabrication of Micromegas detectors. This method provides a concise and etching-free mass-productive process to fabricate the sensitive structure of the Micromegas for gas avalanche. In this paper, our research work on the TBM is presented exhaustively. X-rays were used to characterize Micromegas prototype built with this method. A typical energy resolution of ~16% (FWHM) and an absolute gain of >10^4 were obtained for 5.9 keV X-rays. Because of its lab-friendly operation, the TBM facilitates the exploration of applications and new Micro-Pattern Gaseous Detector structures. One such structure is the Double Micro-Mesh gaseous structure (DMM), which shows very low ion-backflow (~0.05%) and very high gain (>10^6 for single electrons).