Features of microstrip proportional counters

trongIy different way from what was known up to now. We want to present these effects in thiscontribution.Fig. 1 shows a schematical arrangement of such a detector. The essential part within the gas-volume is a microstriyrplate (MS-plate) which amplifies the primary ionization-signals. Such aplate consist of an insulating material like glass; on its suttace very thin conductor strips arefixed. The metallic strip structure is shown in Fig. 2. On the smaller strips, which ere the anodes,a positive electric potential is applied compared with the potential on the larger strips, thecathodes. If the electric field strength produced by this voltage difference is high enough, anelectron which is generated anywhere in the gas volume and which reaches this field space, willexperience an avalanche amplification in the same way as in a counter tube.Such a microstrip-plate is produced by means of photolithography. This technique wasinvented 150 years ago and nowadays mainly serves the production of masks in thesemiconductor industry. It is possible to produce very small structures (about 1 sun) with greatprecision (about *0.1 pm) on large surfaces ofseveral 100 x 100 cm'.The application of this technique to the production of gas (Ietector$ has the followingcdv antages:a) the industrial production of position-sensitive gas detectors is possible. Any number of