An aging study of a gas electron multiplier with micro-strip gas chamber readout

We have performed an aging study of a Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) readout with a Micro-Strip Gas Chamber (MSGC). The GEM is constructed from Kapton and copper, and the MSGC is constructed from semiconductive glass and gold. When the detector (GEM+MSGC) is operated in an argon-dimethyl ether (DME) gas mixture and irradiated with a 5.4 keV photon beam, about 220 mC/cm of charge can be accumulated without degradation of the detector performance. This corresponds to about 20 years of operation at the LHC.