• PiD.
• quenching factor
• Ion ionization energy
• data analysis
• low pressure gas detector
• MPGD
• ENA
• Low energy atoms

My thesis work is focused on the development and operation of an innovative gas detector based on a MICROMEGAS (MM) technology. This instrument, indeed, has been originally developed and widely used for High Energy Physics research, like ATLAS. The experimental activity, summarized in this work, has been performed at INFN Pisa Laboratory with the group involved in the SWEATERS Project. SWEATERS group work on the possibility of using a gas detector operated in low pressure regime to detect, monitor and study atoms as well as ionizing radiation with low energy in the range 1-100 keV. In the last years, this field of investigation has been becoming of great importance for Dark Matter search and Energy Neutral Atoms (ENA) detection for planetary magnetospheres studies. To this purpose we studied and operated a MM detector filled with a gas mixture Ar-CO2 (93:7) maintained at low pressure (50 mbar-150 mbar) increasing the mean-free-path of charged particles into the gas for a better track reconstruction. The focus of my work is on the data analysis development for a precise energy reconstruction of MM mesh signals thanks to two different methods. Some studies, still ongoing, have been carried on comparing the simulation results and experimental measurements performed with Fe55 x-ray source and ion source (1-5keV) . A fraction of the atom energy deposition is not detectable by the MM, differently from the x-ray. My measures will be made with the intention to obtain an absolute energy calibration of the detector.