MS23: Technology demonstrator

This milestone has been achieved. Work on multi-grid detector prototypes has taken place and a new design of grids has recently been tested. The new design has resulted in a reduction of the entrance window thickness and compared to the former grids, the new grids ones are three times larger and have more and smaller cells, which increases the detection efficiency and decreases the dead zones. Further tests will be done first at atmospheric pressure and then at lower pressures down to 50 mbar. Already very promising results at these low pressures with another prototype have been achieved. A challenge has been to solve the issue of elongation of the blades following the B4C-coating process. A new prototype will show if we have succeeded in solving the issue. Already we were able to assemble and mount 16 grids on the same column. A full report on the achievement of this deliverable is available on request.