Preparation of silica aerogel for Cerenkov counters

Aerogel of silica was produced with an index of refraction of n = 1.024 to equip the TASSO Cerenkov detector with 1700 litres of this radiator medium. In the production process, which is described in detail, different parameters were varied to determine their influence on the shape and the optical quality of the aerogel samples. With the present equipment samples with a size of 17 x 17 x 2.3 cm3 were manufactured at a rate of 144 pieces per week. A production efficiency of about 90% was obtained. The index of refraction for all samples around n = 1.024 is distributed with sigmasub(n) = 1.3 x 10-3. They have an optical transmission length of Λ = 2.64 cm at a wavelength lambda = 438 nm with sigmasub(Λ) = 0.22 cm. For samples with n = 1.017, Λ is found to be about 30% higher. (orig.)