Progress in the development of photosensitive GEMs with resistive electrodes manufactured by a screen printing technology

An innovative photosensitive gaseous detector, consisting of a GEM-like amplification structure with double-layered electrodes (instead of commonly used metallic ones) coated with a CsI reflective photocathode, is described. In one of our latest designs, the inner electrode consists of a metallic grid and the outer one is made of resistive strips; the latter are manufactured by a screen-printing technology on the top of the metallic strips's grid The inner metallic grid is used for 2-D position measurements whereas the resistive layer provides an efficient spark-protected operation at high gains close to the breakdown limit. Detectors with active areas of 10x10 and 10x20 cm2 were tested under various conditions including the operation in photosensitive gas mixtures containing ethylferrocene or TMAE vapors. The new technique could have many applications requiring robust and reliable large-area detectors for UV visualization, as for example, in Cherenkov imaging devices.