Long-term irradiation of a MSGC made of gold strips on electron conducting C85-1 glass under several gas mixtures and cleanliness conditions

The present study aims to create reproducible and controlled polluted conditions in a clean gas system in order to be able to compare the behaviour of an MSGC plate operating with Ar-DME and Ne-DME gas mixtures. The achievement of such conditions seems to be more difficult than would be expected from the long term behaviour shown by MSGCs years ago in the same gas system. The pollutants present in the gas rack, possibly originating the dramatic losses reported then, are not present anymore in the gas system after four years of continuous operation with the Ar-DME mixture. The use of new and supposedly clean stainless steel gas pipes of smaller diameter might affect the chamber operation, although the lines are rapidly cleaned ( ~weeks) after being flushed with DME. The back-diffusion of pollutants due to the use of a Si-Oil bubbler affects dramatically the chamber operation, which behave s slightly better with argon than with neon; in view of the other variables, we do not consider this difference as significative.