Performance of a large-area GEM detector read out with wide radial zigzag strips

A 1-meter-long trapezoidal Triple-GEM detector with wide readout strips was tested in hadron beams at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility in October 2013. The readout strips have a special zigzag geometry and run radially with an azimuthal pitch of 1.37 mrad to measure the azimuthal ϕ-coordinate of incident particles. The zigzag geometry of the readout reduces the required number of electronic channels by a factor of three compared to conventional straight readout strips while preserving good angular resolution. The average crosstalk between zigzag strips is measured to be an acceptable 5.5%. The detection efficiency of the detector is (98.4±0.2)%. When the non-linearity of the zigzag-strip response is corrected with track information, the angular resolution is measured to be (193±3) μrad, which corresponds to 14% of the angular strip pitch. Multiple Coulomb scattering effects are fully taken into account in the data analysis with the help of a stand-alone Geant4 simulation that estimates interpolated track errors.