Progress with diamond over-coated microstrip gas chambers

We describe recent observations and measurements with Micro-Strip Gas Chambers coated, after manufacturing, with a thin diamond-like layer in order to increase their rate capability. Compared to the more widely used solution consisting in coating the insulating support with a conductive layer before photo-lithography (the so-called undercoating), over-coating has the advantage of avoiding possible problems with adherence of metals to the layer, damages during the etching process and reduced quality of the artwork resulting from imperfections or dust inclusions in the layer. Early tests have however indicated that, possibly because of damages to the layer due to electron and ion bombardment during the avalanche process, irreversible structural modifications and fatal breakdown could be encountered at very high integral radiation fluxes. The present paper summarizes these results, and describes recent developments demonstrating that a better choice of the parameters of the over-coat may allow to withstand the radiation doses anticipated for LHC detectors with the intrinsically simpler over-coating solution. We discuss also several possible applications of the use of thin, controlled resistivity layers for other families of detectors used or in development for CERN¹s high luminosity collider.