The performance of Glass GEM

Here we report the performance of Glass gas electron multipliers (Glass GEMs), which were fabricated with photo-etchable glass. The photo-etchable glass used for substrate is called PEG3 (Hoya Corporation). With this material, we succeeded in fabricating a Glass GEM that was 680-mu m-thick with a hole diameter of 170-mu m and Cr and Cu layer electrodes. A Glass GEM has advantages such as good uniformity, high gain, a flat surface without stretching, cylindrical holes, and the absence of outgassing from the material. We successfully operated a Glass GEM having 100 x 100 mm(2) effective area with various gas mixtures. The energy resolution for 5.9 keV X-rays was 18%, obtained by uniform irradiation of the entire effective area. The gas gain of the Glass GEM reached up to 90,000 with a gas mixture of Ne/CF4 (90:10). The Glass GEM was also operated with Ar/CH4 and Ar/CF4 gas. The gain stability measured for Glass GEM showed no significant increase or decrease as a function of elapsed time from applying high voltage. The gain stability over 15 hours of operation was about 10% in high-count-rate irradiation. Gain mapping across the Glass GEM showed good uniformity with a standard deviation of about 10%.