A study of wire chambers with highly segmented cathode pad readout for high multiplicity charged particle detection

Investigations of interpolating cathode “pad” readout have been carried out for high multiplicity, two dimensional position sensitive detection of minimum ionizing particles and heavy ions. A detector configuration representing only 0.6% of a radiation length and covering an area of 26 cm by 16 cm, with over 1000 readout channels, has been developed. In a prototype chamber using this technique, a resolution of less than 100 µm (rms), for 5.4 keV x-ray, and differential non-linearity of ±6% have been achieved. The technique has also been demonstrated for detectors of much larger area.