Investigation of aging in the HERA-B Outer Tracker drift tubes

Author

Kolanoski, H.

Author_Institution

Humboldt-Univ., Berlin, Germany

Volume

1

fYear

2000

fDate

2000

Firstpage

42496

Abstract

The HERA-B Outer Tracker consists of drift tubes folded from polycarbonate foil and is operated with Ar CF₄ CO₂ as drift gas. The detector has to stand radiation levels which are similar to LHC conditions. The first prototypes exposed to radiation in HERA-B suffered severe radiation damage due to the development of self-sustaining currents (Malter effect). In a subsequent extended R&D program major changes to the original concept for the drift tubes (surface conductivity, drift gas, production materials) have been developed and validated for use in harsh radiation environments. In the test program various aging effects-like Malter currents, gain loss due to anode aging and etching of the anode gold surface-have been observed and cures by tuning of operation parameters have been developed

Keywords

argon; drift chambers; radiation effects; Ar; CO₂; HERA-B Outer Tracker drift tubes; Malter effect; anode aging; anode gold surface etching; drift gas; gain loss; harsh radiation environments; polycarbonate foil; production materials; radiation levels; self-sustaining currents; severe radiation damage; surface conductivity; Aging; Anodes; Argon; Conductivity; Etching; Large Hadron Collider; Production materials; Prototypes; Radiation detectors; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nuclear Science Symposium Conference Record, 2000 IEEE

Conference_Location

Lyon

ISSN

1082-3654

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6503-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NSSMIC.2000.949069

Filename

949069