Digitized Printed Discharge Planes and Their Operation at Rapid Rates

During the last two years the development of digitized discharge planes at Brookhaven National Laboratory for operation as particle hodoscopes at rapid rates evolved from small copper wire planes to larger aluminum wire planes and later to printed circuit type thin-wall planes, which are presently in use in experiments described elsewhere in this journal.¿ Construction of the printed circuit planes, design of the vacuum tube pulsers and factors affecting operation of the planes are described. Attainment of a short recovrery time after a spark depends on operating with reasonably low energy in the spark, absorbing the spark energy left in the gas with quenching vapor, and applying pulsed positive ion drift fields for a preset time following the spark. Recovery time can be of the order of 20¿ sec in neonheliur alcohol mnixtures. Factors which affect multiplane system performance at high rates are discussed.