Development of 2 m×2 m size glass RPCs for INO

The India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) collaboration is planning to build a massive 50 kt magnetised iron calorimeter (ICAL) detector to study atmospheric neutrinos and to precisely determine the neutrino oscillation parameters. About 30,000 2 m×2 m size glass Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) will be used as active detector elements in ICAL. Starting with a small 30 cm ×30 cm size RPCs, we have now succeeded in developing full size 2 m ×2 m RPCs. The fabrication procedures used for these large size RPCs as well as their performance will be discussed in this paper. We will also present some preliminary results from our studies on SF6 based gas mixtures on the RPC operation and characteristics.