Performance study of a bakelite RPC prototype built by new technique of linseed oil coating

Abstract Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC) is one of the most commonly used detectors in high energy physics experiments for triggering and tracking because of its good efficiency (> 90%) and time resolution (∼ 1–2 ns). Generally, bakelite which is one of the most commonly used materials as electrode plates in RPC, sometimes suffers from surface roughness issues. If the surface is not smooth, the probability of micro discharges and spurious pulses increase, which leads to the deterioration in the performance of the detector. We have developed a new method of linseed oil coating for the bakelite based detectors to avoid the surface roughness issue. The detector is characterised with Tetrafluoroethane (R134a) based gas mixture. The detector is also tested with a high rate of gamma radiation environment in the laboratory for the radiation hardness test. The detailed measurement procedure and test results are presented in this article.