X. Workshop on Resistive Plate Chambers and Related Detectors

For the most forward, high rate environment, region of Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at the future Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research in Darmstadt the installation of timing Resistive Plate Chambers (RPC) is under consideration. Prototype timing RPCs have been developed at Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (FZD). RPC electrodes with volume resistivity of about 10^9 Ω⋅cm are preferred for high rate capability purposes. After few years of investigations with different electrode materials (e.g. plastics with nano-fillers, semiconducting glasses) special ceramics composites have been developed and processed. The prototype with a dimension of the ceramics electrodes of 10x10 cm2 has been exposed at the electron accelerator ELBE at FZD with 32 MeV single-electron beam pulses. The flux of the primary beam is tunable from few electrons/s to 10^7 electrons/s. The exposed region amounts to about 10 cm2. A careful analysis of the results allows a continuous improvement of the ceramics RPC properties. During an exposition in September 2009 it appeared that the ceramics RPC shows an all-time high rate capability for resistive plate counters. The efficiency of the four-gap device with 300 μm gas gap width amounts to 95% for fluxes up to 5x10^5 s-1⋅cm-2. The time resolution is independent for fluxes up to 10^5 s-1⋅cm-2 and amounts to about 100 ps.