Performance of the cylindrical-GEM prototype for the inner tracker of KLOE-2

We developed a low mass, fully cylindrical and dead-zone-free GEM detector as inner tracker for the KLOE experiment upgrade at the DAFNE Φ-factory. The proposed detector, that opens the way for a new and competitive category of ultra-light, full sensitive vertex detectors for high energy physics experiments, will play a crucial role in the study of the KS and η rare decays and in the measurement of the neutral kaon interferometry. The main physics requirements are: good spatial resolutions, σ(rφ) = 200 µm and σ(z) = 500 µm and a very low material budget, 2% of X0 for the whole detector. The inner tracker will be composed by five layers of cylindrical triple-GEM detectors (CGEM), covering the space from the beam pipe to the inner wall of the KLOE Drift Chamber (from 150 mm to 250 mm radius). Each CGEM is realized inserting one into the other the required five cylindrical structures made of thin (50 µ m) polyimide foils: the cathode, the three GEMs and the anode readout. In order to avoid the use of support frames inside the sensitive volume, the cylindrical GEMs are mechanically stretched from their ends where annular fiberglass frames are glued. The final result is a very light detector: only 0.2% of X0 per layer inside the active area. A full scale prototype (300 mm diameter, 360 mm length) of the first layer of the inner tracker has been successfully built and characterized under different experimental conditions. After a brief description of the construction procedure, the results of the extensive tests are presented.