INTRODUCTION TO MICROPAT TERN GAS DETECTORS

July 7, 2010 º Serge Duarte Pinto

In this paper the principles of gaseous radiation detectors will be introduced.

The working principle of all gas detectors is similar: radiation causes ionization
in the gas, electrons and ions drift apart in an electric field, and the electrons
create further electron-ion pairs in an avalanche process in a region with a
strong electrostatic field.
Gaseous detectors differ in how this strong field region is created; many
examples will be given to illustrate this. After a short historical introduction
to micropattern gas detectors, a few production techniques will be intro-
duced that made it possible to make mpgds. Finally, an overview of detector
technologies and their respective merits and applications will be given.

Principles of gaseous detectors

Ionization
The electrons directly liberated by encounters of a highly energetic charged Charged particles
particle with the gas molecules constitute the primary ionization [1]. Further
ionization is caused by collisions of primary electrons with molecules and by
various modes of relaxation of primary excitations; this is called secondary
ionization. One important de-excitation mechanism leading to ionization is
the Penning transfer, which occurs when one component of the gas mixture
has an excitation energy greater than the ionization potential of another
component. Excited molecules from the first component can then ionize the
other component, with a probability that depends on the temperature and
density.
Most of the charge along a track is from secondary ionization. The range
of primary and secondary electrons in a gas at ntp is typically (much) shorter
than a millimeter. On the other hand, the average distance between primary
ionizations from a relativistic particle is typically a few millimeters. This gives
rise to the characteristic charge deposition pattern as an irregular chain of
so-called clusters, see figure 1.
Gaseous detectors can also be used for detection of neutral particles like Photons & neutrons
photons (x-ray or uv) or neutrons. Soft x-rays (up to ∼ 12 keV) and thermal
neutrons (∼ 26 meV) are often used for structural analysis of condensed matter,
as their wavelengths are of the order of magnitude of interatomic distances (∼

1
Principles of gaseous detectors

0 10 [mm] 20

Figure 1 — Left (blue background): ionization in clusters along a track, as observed

by a highly granular time projection chamber (tpc) with an Ar/CO2 (70/30 %) gas
mixture [2]. Right: 5.4 keV x-ray conversions in an Ne/dme (dimethyl ether) 80/20%
gas mixture. Measurements are from a gem pixel detector [3]. The reconstruction
is indicated, marking the conversion point (9) and the direction of emission of the
photoelectron.

1 Å). Large area uv photodetectors are needed for many Cherenkov detectors
used in particle physics. As neutral particles do not lose energy in many
ionizing interactions along their path like charged particles do, detection
depends on a conversion interaction which liberates one or more charged
particles. In the case of photons this happens by the photoelectric effect. A
uv photon yields (with a certain quantum efficiency) a single photoelectron
from a solid photoconverter layer or from a component of the gas mixture.
Soft x-ray photons (up to ∼ 12 keV) liberate a primary photoelectron from
the gas, with energy E = hν − є, where ε is the ionization energy of the gas
atom. This energy is lost in collisions with gas molecules, and in total a few
hundred electron-ion pairs are thus created. Figure 1 includes also some
of these conversion events. The heavier noble gases have the highest cross-
sections for x-ray absorption, therefore krypton and xenon are frequently
used in x-ray detectors. Thermal neutrons (few tens of meV) can be converted
by a nuclear reaction with special isotopes of light elements, either in a solid
foil or film or as a component of the gas mixture. This reaction yields an ion
and a proton or α-particle, both are strongly ionizing. See table 1 for reactions
and cross-sections of most commonly used isotopes.

Drift & diffusion

The charge from primary and secondary ionizations drifts apart in an electric
field of few hundred up to few thousand V/cm. The ions thus recombine at
the cathode, while the electrons are transferred to the amplification region.
The drift velocity depends on gas mixture and reduced drift field (defined as
the ratio of electric field to pressure, E/p), and is normally a few cm/µs for

2
 Drift & diffusion

Table 1 — Absorption cross-sections for thermal neutrons (300 K; 26 meV) of a few

isotopes, and their conversion reactions. [4]

Isotope σ(barn) Reaction

3
He 5.33 ⋅ 103 3
He + n → 3 H(0.19MeV) + p(0.57MeV)
6
Li 9.45 ⋅ 102 6
Li + n → 3 H(2.74MeV) + α(2.05MeV)
10
B 4.01 ⋅ 103 10
B + n → 7 Li(0.83MeV) + α(1.47MeV)

electrons, and about a thousand times slower for ions. At a microscopic scale,
a constant drift velocity is the consequence of many elastic collisions with gas
molecules, for which the dynamics are different between electrons and ions.
The fractional loss of kinetic energy in an elastic collision is proportional
to the mass ratio of the colliding bodies, which for electrons is ∼ 10−4 and
for ions ∼ 1. Consequently, ions are almost stopped by each collision, while
electrons are scattered isotropically. This causes a significant diffusion of
drifting electrons, whereas ions drift nearly perfectly along the electric field.
The diffusion width of an electron cloud drifting from a point-like origin is
defined as the rms of its transverse lateral distribution:

√
2DL
σx = . (1)
µE

Here L is the drift length, D is the diffusion coefficient and µ is the electron
mobility; the latter two are properties of gas composition and conditions,
D also depends on the magnetic field. Electron diffusion is found to be
not entirely isotropic [5], longitudinal diffusion is generally smaller than
transverse diffusion.
The presence of a magnetic field influences drift and diffusion. A magnetic Magnetic field
field perpendicular to the electric field, as we find in a transverse tracking
station inside the solenoidal magnet of an experiment, introduces a Lorentz
angle in the drift of electrons. In case the magnetic field is parallel to the
electric field, like in a tpc, the transverse diffusion of electrons is suppressed
allowing a good spatial resolution even for drift lengths of ∼ 1 m. This diffusion
suppression is a consequence of the bending of the transverse motion of
electrons, thereby reducing their excursion. The longitudinal component of
the velocity is not affected, as it is parallel to the magnetic field.

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 Principles of gaseous detectors

Amplification
If the electric field is strong enough (⪆ 10 kV/cm/atm, depending on gas
components and density), the drifting electrons gain sufficient kinetic en-
ergy between collisions with gas molecules for further ionization. Thus an
avalanche develops exponentially, as long as the field is above this multiplica-
tion threshold. This process is described by the first Townsend coefficient α,
which depends on E and the gas composition and density. The increase of
the number of electrons N along a path s is expressed as
(2)
To calculate the gas gain of a certain amplification structure, the above ex-
pression must be integrated over the trajectory of a drifting electron:

N b
= exp ∫ αds. (3)
N0 a

The boundaries a, b need to cover only the region where the field is sufficiently
strong, α = 0 elsewhere. Penning transfers, mentioned above, also play an
important role in the multiplication mechanism and can increase the gain by
an order of magnitude.
Photons An avalanche also produces photons, usually in similar quantities to
electron-ion pairs. A few of these photons may have sufficient energy to cause
ionization, either in the gas or on an electrode. If such energetic photons have
a range greater than the size of the avalanche, so-called afterpulses may occur
(by photoelectric effect on the nearest electrode), or the high voltage in the
chamber may break down completely (by ionization of gas molecules). To
avoid such unstable behavior, the range of uv photons is usually reduced by a
so-called quencher admixture to the active gas. This is a molecular component,
often a hydrocarbon or CO2 , that has a high photo-absorption coefficient due
to the molecules’ many rotational and translational degrees of freedom.

Signal induction
All the moving charges, both electrons and ions, induce currents on the
electrodes in the chamber. If an electrode is connected to a charge sensitive
amplifier, these induced charges can be read out as electrical signals.
Ramo’s theorem [6] describes the current induced on electrode n by the
movement of charge q over the path x(t) with drift velocity v(t):
Iind
n (t) = −qEn [x(t)] ⋅ v(t). (4)

4
Here En is the so-called weighting field of electrode n, defined as the field
obtained by applying a potential of 1 V to that electrode while grounding all
other electrodes. Equation 4 is exact in case all electrodes are grounded. If
some electrodes are connected to ground via some sort of impedance network,
a correction term must be added to describe the capacitive coupling of the
voltage fluctuations on these electrodes to electrode n [7].

History and properties of mpgds

For several decades the most common way to generate a gas amplification
field was using thin wires, either one or many, where close to the wire the
field strength is inversely proportional to the distance to the wire. This is
illustrated in figure 2, the two first pictures. The avalanche takes place few
tens of microns from the wire, and the electrons are collected immediately.
The ions drift back all the way to the cathode; the signals from proportional
wires are therfore almost entirely based on the movement of ions.

multiwire single wire strips holes parallel plate grooves

Figure 2 — Simulated electric field profiles for various micropattern technologies.

In recent years, many planar structures have emerged that generate an en-
hanced field region in various ways. Several examples are shown in figure 2
and many more have been developed. Common feature among all these struc-
tures is a narrow amplification gap of typically 50–100 microns, compared
to many millimeters for wire-type structures. These devices are now known
under the common name of micropattern gaseous detectors (mpgds).
The first such structure to gain popularity was the microstrip gas cham- Microstrip gas chamber
ber [8] (msgc), of which the field pattern is shown in the third picture in (msgc)
figure 2. The principle of an msgc resembles a wire chamber, with fine printed
strips instead of thin wires, see figure 3. Due to the microelectronics tech-
niques employed in manufacturing the spacing between anode strips was
as narrow as 200 microns, compared to at least several millimeters for wire
chambers. Most ions created in the avalanche process drift to the wider cath-
ode strips, which are spaced only 60 microns away from the anodes. This

5
 History and properties of mpgds

Figure 3 — Left: wires of a multiwire proportional chamber (mwpc) soldered to a

frame. Right: microscope image of a microstrip gas chamber (msgc)

short drift path for ions overcomes the space charge effect present in wire
chambers, where the slowly drifting ions may remain in the gas volume for
milliseconds, and modify the electric field (thereby reducing the gain). Fig-
ure 4 shows how this space charge effect limits the rate capability of wire
chambers, and how the fine granularity of msgcs pushes this limit by two
orders of magnitude.
The high rate capability of the msgc made it an attractive technology for
many applications. However, the development of the msgc also showed some
new limitations, most of which are common to all micropattern devices. One
common issue is the charging of insulating surfaces which modifies the field
shape locally, limiting the time stability. For msgcs this could be solved by
surface treatment of the glass substrate to decrease the surface resistivity.
Possibly most important is the issue of discharges, which eventually led
high-energy physics experiments to abandon msgc technology. Msgcs suf-
fered severely from such discharges, induced by heavily ionizing particles or
high particle rates, which could fatally damage the fragile anode strips, see
figure 5. In 1997 the gas electron multiplier (gem) was introduced [10] as
a preamplification stage for the msgc. This allowed the msgc to work at a
lower voltage, thereby lowering the probability of discharges as well as the en-
ergy involved in discharges when they occurred. The gem principle was so
successful that it soon became the basis for a detector in its own right.
Gas electron multiplier The gas electron multiplier is a copper clad polyimide foil with a regular
(gem) pattern of densely spaced holes, see figure 6. Upon applying a voltage between
the top and bottom electrodes, a dipole field is formed which focuses inside
the holes where it is strong enough for gas amplification. As a gem is only
an amplification structure, it is independent of the readout structure, which
can be optimized for the application (see a few examples in figure 7). Due to

6
Figure 4 — Gain as a function of particle rate in otherwise constant conditions, for
wire chambers in blue and msgcs in red. [9]

Figure 5 — Damage done to msgcs by discharges. The left frame shows a new msgc.
In the middle frame one can see the impact of sparks on the electrodes (the little
dark spots). In the right frame anode strips are cut by a strong discharge, leaving
part of those anodes inactive. With its very thin metal layers msgcs are particularly
vulnerable for discharge damage.

7
 History and properties of mpgds

70 µm
140 µm 55 µm
70 µm

Figure 6 — Electron microscope images of a gem foil: oblique perspective (left) and
in cross-section (middle). On the right a simulated electron avalanche in a gem hole.
Also the diffusion of electrons is simulated, resulting in the irregular trajectories
shown.

the separation from the readout structure, possible discharges do not directly
impact the front-end electronics, thus making the detector more discharge
tolerant. Also, it can be cascaded to achieve higher gain at lower gem voltage,
which decreases the discharge probability, see figure 8. The triple gem has now
become a standard which is used in many high rate applications [12, 13, 14].

cartesian small angle hexaboard strips-on-pads

Figure 7 — Some examples of readout structures developed for gem detectors.

Micromesh gas detector Another detector structure developed about the same time is the mi-
(Micromegas) cromesh gas detector, or Micromegas [15]. This detector has a parallel plate
geometry with the amplification gap between a metallic micromesh and the
readout board. Parallel plate amplification existed before, but the Micromegas
has a much narrower amplification gap of around 50–100 µm. The narrow am-
plification gap provides fast signals and a high rate capability. The micromesh
is supported by regularly spaced pillars which maintain the accurate spacing.
This is shown in figure 9.

8
Figure 8 — Gain (solid lines, left scale) and discharge probability (dashed lines, right
scale) as a function of gem voltage, for single (sgem), double (dgem) and triple
gem (tgem) detectors [11]. Discharge probability is measured by irradiation with
α-particles, which are so strongly ionizing that they are likely to cause a discharge.

50 µm

800 µm

Figure 9 — Microscope images of a Micromegas detector, with indicated mesh and

pillar spacings.

9
Current trends in mpgds

Current trends in mpgds

The development of mpgds took off in the 1990s mainly as a way to achieve
a higher rate capability with gaseous detectors. Since then applications have
driven developers to exploit the additional benefits of these structures, such
as excellent time and position resolution, resistance to aging, and intrinsic
ion and photon feedback suppression. Advances in available techniques for
microelectronics and printed circuits opened ways to make new structures
and optimize existing ones. This led to a wide range of detector structures
for an even wider range of applications, with a performance superior to any
traditional gas detector.

Techniques
The techniques that enabled the advent of micropattern gas detectors come
from the industry of microelectronics and printed circuits. The microstrip
gas chamber is made by employing photolithographic techniques used by
microelectronics manufacturers. Instead of silicon wafers, thin glass plates
are used as a substrate for printing the fine strip patterns. These glass plates
are doped or sputter coated with so-called Pestov glass in order to reduce
slightly the surface resistivity, which improves the time stability [16].
The very thin metal layers of msgcs (few hundred nanometers) makes
them vulnerable for discharges, which can easily do fatal damage (figure 5).
Many of the later micropattern devices use thicker metals (few microns), and
performance is normally unaffected by thousands of discharges. The tech-
niques used to pattern these metals and the insulators separating them come
from the manufacturing of printed circuit boards (pcbs). An advantage is the
much lower cost, and the possibility to cover larger areas. These techniques
include photolithography, metal etching and screen printing.
A rather special technique, thoroughly refined in the cern pcb workshop,
is the etching of polyimide. This is the basis of a number of micropattern gas
detectors, including the gem. Another method to pattern insulators, more
standard in industry, is using photo-imageable polymers such as photoresist,
coverlayers and solder masks.

Technologies
A few of the most prominent micropattern gas detector technologies have been
mentioned in the introduction. Many more structures were developed and
are currently used, which are often derived from msgc, gem or Micromegas.

10
 Technologies

microhole & strip plate Cobra thickgem bulk Micromegas

50 µm

micropin array µ-pic InGrid on pixel chip fine-pitch gem

Figure 10 — Microscope images of various detector structures. See text for details
on each frame.

A few more examples are discussed here, but the selection is by no means
exhaustive.
The refinement of the polyimide etching technique that is used to make Polyimide structures
gems, is also used for some detectors with a readout structure in the same
plane as the amplification structure. These are the well [17] and the groove
detector [18]. Unlike the gem these structures are not “transparent”, all the
electrons from the avalanche are collected on the bottom electrode which
is also the readout structure. The microhole and strip plate [19] combines
the amplification mechanisms of gem holes and microstrips (see figure 10,
first frame), and combines a high gas gain with an excellent ion feedback
suppression. The Cobra structure [20], shown in the second frame of figure 10,
was designed to enhance the ion feedback suppression further by an order of
magnitude.
Another gem-derivative is the thickgem [21], also shown in figure 10. This Thickgem
is a hole-type amplification structure, where the flexible polyimide substrate
is replaced by a thicker glassfiber-reinforced-epoxy plate and the holes are me-
chanically drilled. The substrate is the standard base material for rigid pcbs
and is therefore cheap, and readily available from any pcb manufacturer. Also
the automatic drilling of the holes is a standard industry procedure. One has
full control over the hole pitch and diameter, and the shape, size and thickness
of the base material. These structures are convenient for applications where
position and time resolution are not the most critical parameters, but which
require a high gain and a certain ruggedness. Thickgems are for instance
popular for photodetector applications, where the stiff substrate lends itself
well to the vacuum deposition of a CsI photoconverter [22]. More recently,

11
 Current trends in mpgds

electrodes of thickgems have been covered with or replaced by resistive lay-

ers [23]. These detectors are reported to work stably in streamer mode, due
to the enhanced quenching by the resistive layers.
Bulk Micromegas Micromegas detectors underwent a technical improvement with the in-
troduction of a new fabrication method [24]. Here a woven metal micromesh
is laminated to the readout board between layers of photoimageable solder-
mask. These soldermask layers can subsequently be patterned by uv-exposure
to create the supporting pillar structure (see the fourth frame of figure 10).
The materials involved are quite inexpensive, and the processes are industry
standard, which makes it suitable for large scale production. Also, the homo-
geneity of the grid spacing is better than of the original Micromegas detectors,
and the detector is very robust.
Micropin, microdot The micropin array [25] was introduced for x-ray imaging (see figure 10,
first frame of the second row). The spherical geometry of the electric field
close to the end of each pin (proportional to 1/r 2 compared to 1/r of a wire
chamber) gives rise to very short amplification region, allowing a rate-stable
high gain. A similar philosophy led to the development of the microdot
chamber [26](also shown in figure 10, for which microelectronics techniques
were employed to reach feature sizes of only a few microns.
Pixel readout The coming of age of post-wafer processing techniques marked the intro-
duction of mpgds with pixel readout. These detectors use the bump-bonding
pads of a pixel chip as a readout structure. The position and time resolution
of these devices is unmatched by any other gas detector. Due to their high
sensitivity they can distinguish each primary electron. This enables them to
resolve delta-rays from a track or to reconstruct the direction of emission
of a photoelectron from an x-ray conversion (related to the x-ray polariza-
tion). One group uses a Micromegas-type of gas amplification: InGrid [27].
The grid electrode and the insulating pillar structure supporting it are made
directly on the chip by post-wafer processing techniques, allowing the grid
holes to be aligned with the readout pads (see figure 10). Another group uses
an asic with a hexagonal readout pad structure, and a gem-based amplifica-
tion structure [3]. Here the gem has a reduced pitch of 50µm and thickness
of 25µm (compared to 140µm and 50µm respectively for standard gems) to
match the granularity of the readout (see the last frame of figure 10).

Applications
Micropattern gas detectors have already been applied in many instruments
and experiments, both by science and industry. Possible fields of applica-
tion are high-energy and nuclear physics, synchrotron and thermal neutron

12
 Applications

research, medical imaging and homeland security. Most structures were

primarily developed for high rate tracking of charged particles in nuclear
and high-energy physics experiments. For instance Micromegas [28] and
gems [12] are used in the compass experiment, and gems in lhcb [14] and
totem [13] experiments. Also for the lhc machine upgrade program to
increase its luminosity by roughly a factor of ten, most of the experiments
foresee replacement of wire chambers, drift tubes and resistive plate cham-
bers by mpgds. However many mpgds have shown to be suitable for other
applications as well. A few examples are given here.
Both gems and Micromegas can be used for the readout of a time projec- Tpc
tion chamber [29] (tpc). Compared to wire chambers, these mpgds have the
benefit that the planar structure suppresses the so-called E × B effects which
limit the spatial resolution of wire chambers in a tpc configuration. Also,
both Micromegas and gems have a natural ion feedback suppression, which
may make a gating structure unnecessary. If a high granularity readout struc-
ture like a pixel chip is used, the excellent spatial and energy resolution can
resolve primary clusters, improving the measurement of energy loss.
As mentioned before, gem-like structures can be coated with a photocon- Photodetection
verter (typically CsI) to serve as a photon counter. In this way, large areas can
be covered with hardly any dead zones, and the technique is inexpensive. This
makes it attractive for ring imaging Cherenkov detectors, where the photode-
tector planes often span several square meters. Also here the ion feedback
suppression is an added benefit, as it increases the lifetime of the photocon-
verter. In addition, the detector can be made “hadron-blind” by reversing the
drift field, and even “windowless” if the Cherenkov radiator gas (in that case
typically CF4 ) is also used as amplification gas [30].
X-ray counting and imaging detectors can be based on mpgds [31], as X-ray detection
x-rays convert in some noble gases leaving typically few hundred primary
electrons for detection. For these purposes efficient x-ray conversion gases
are frequently used, such as xenon or krypton. Argon is about an order of
magnitude less efficient, but so much cheaper that it can still be attractive for
high rate applications.
Microstrip gas chambers and gem detectors are also used as neutron Neutron detection
detectors [32]. A boron layer (in the form of 10 B2 O3 ) can be vapor-deposited
onto gem foils, which acts as a neutron converter. For the best efficiencies
gaseous converters are used at high pressure: 3 He or 10 BF3 . Conversion
reactions and cross-sections are given in table 1.

13
 Current trends in mpgds

Performance
Depending on the application, the performance of mpgds has different figures
of merit. The first mpgds were designed to obtain a high rate capability. Several
MHz/mm2 of charged particles are easily reached with, for instance, a triple
gem detector, without a measurable loss of gain and with negligible discharge
probability.
Resolutions Time, position and energy resolution are crucial figures for most appli-
cations. Gem-based detectors normally have a position resolution of about
50 µm, Micromegas can go down to ∼ 12µm if equipped with a high density
readout board. Time resolutions are of the order of few nanoseconds. X-ray
energy resolution is often measured using a 55 Fe source, obtaining a fwhm
between 15% and 22%. Mpgds with pixel chip readout report position reso-
lutions below 10 µm and a time resolution of 1 ns. From the 55 Fe spectrum
they can resolve the Kα and Kβ energies, and reach a resolution of 12%.
Ion feedback The reduction of ion backflow into the drift region is a general property
of mpgds. It is usually expressed as a fraction of the effective gain, and
this value depends quite strongly on the way the fields are configured in
the chamber. Microhole and strip plates feature a particularly effective ion
feedback suppression of the order 10−4 in optimized conditions. Combined
with a Cobra structure, 10−5 has even been realized [20].
Aging Aging modes of gas detectors are largely understood in the case of wire
chambers [33]. There the plasmas that are formed during avalanches in the
strong field near the wire deposit layers of silica or polymers which reduce
the gain and give rise to micro discharges. Most micropattern devices do not
generate such a strong field at the surface of the conductors, and consequently
little signs of aging have been observed. Specific aging studies of mpgds have
rarely been done yet, and time will prove if they are as resistant to aging as it
seems.

14
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