Resistive plate chambers for time-of-flight measurements

The applications of Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) have recently been extended by the development of counters with time resolution below 100 ps sigma for minimum ionising particles. Applications to HEP experiments have already taken place and many further applications are under study. In this work we address the operating principles of such counters along with some present challenges, with emphasis on counter aging.
Presented at "PSD6 - 6th International Conference on Position Sensitive Detectors", 9-13 September 2002, Leicester, UK. Submitted to Nuclear Instruments and Methods A