Speaker
Description
Future circular $e^+e^-$ colliders require tracking systems that combine a very low material budget, high spatial resolution, mechanical stability, and particle identification capabilities. As part of the IDEA detector concept, the INTREPID drift chamber is being developed as an ultralight central tracker based on a large number of thin wires and composite structural components.
This contribution presents the development and characterization studies conducted for this detector. A specific mechanical design of the composite endplates was developed using CAD and finite element simulations. The proposed spoke-and-tie architecture provides an efficient load transfer mechanism, reducing the maximum expected axial deformation from several millimeters to approximately $0.19$ mm under full wire loading. Specific tensile tests were also performed on $20~\mu\mathrm{m}$ gold-plated tungsten and molybdenum wires, as well as $33.5~\mu\mathrm{m}$ carbon monowires, to determine their mechanical properties and establish safe operating voltage margins.
Beam-test measurements using helium-based drift gas mixtures were used to study primary ionization cluster counting for particle identification. The measured ionization resolution improved from approximately $5.7\%$ using conventional $dE/dx$ to about $3.0\%$ using $dN/dx$.
These results demonstrate the importance of combined optimization of mechanical structure, ultrathin wires, materials, and signal reconstruction for the development of next-generation low-mass drift chambers.
