2008/07/17 by I. Giomataris, I.G. Irastorza, I. Irastorza +16 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #CCD and CMOS Imaging Sensors #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Particle Detector Development and Performance #physics.ins-det
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1748-0221/3/09/p09007
published as JINST 3:P09007,2008 · 13 pages, 13 figures
arxiv created 2008/07/17 · openalex publication_date 2008/09/30 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
A new type of radiation detector based on a spherical geometry is presented. The detector consists of a large spherical gas volume with a central electrode forming a radial electric field. Charges deposited in the conversion volume drift to the central sensor where they are amplified and collected. We introduce a small spherical sensor located at the center acting as a proportional amplification structure. It allows high gas gains to be reached and operates in a wide range of gas pressures. Signal development and the absolute amplitude of the response are consistent with predictions. Sub-keV energy threshold with good energy resolution is achieved. This new concept has been proven to operate in a simple and robust way and allows reading large volumes with a single read-out channel. The detector performance presently achieved is already close to fulfill the demands of many challenging projects from low energy neutrino physics to dark matter detection with applications in neutron, alpha and gamma spectroscopy.