Study and characterisation of pad-based readout for RPC detector

The Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) is a parallel plate avalanche type particle detector which uses a gas mixture as its active detection medium. While high resistivity materials like glass or bakelite plates are commonly used as the detector electrodes, plastic core-based and metal foil laminated pickup panels with segmented strips are used to readout the induced signals. Large area RPCs (of dimension 2 m x 2 m) of this design are chosen as the active detector elements for the India-based Neutrino Observatory's (INO) magnetised Iron Calorimeter (ICAL) detector. One of the main goals of the ICAL detector is a precision measurement of neutrino oscillation parameters. As part of the ongoing detector R&D, a pad-based - instead of strip-based readout - scheme is being developed to improve localization of particle hit positions, while retaining good charge profile and noise rate characteristics of the strip-based RPC based detectors.