Development and simulation of an active target detector with GEM foil readout

Sammanfattning: At CERN, radioactive ion beams with energies of up to 10 MeV/u can be pro- duced by a newly commissioned post-accelerator, HIE-ISOLDE, which expands the possibilities for nuclear reaction studies. To investigate the collision properties of the ion beam with a target, an active gas–target detector is under development by the Reactions Group at the Nuclear Physics Division in Lund. The existing detector setup was further investigated in this thesis. Experimental tests of the gain and stability of the detector were performed with the simulation package Garfield++ for a 82/18 Ar/CO 2 gas mixture and a 55 Fe source. The results were compared to results obtained from an earlier project. Simulations of electron drift were performed for different drift distances to characterize the spread of an electron cloud to design a new backgammon shaped readout plane to investigate the electron diffusion. First tests of new readout electronics have been performed and a C++ file has been written to investigate cross talk of the used Kapton cables.