Characterization of Microbulk Micromegas detectors through digital image processing

Microbulk Micromegas (MICRO-MEsh GAseous Structure) detectors are gaseous parallel plate detectors for the tracking of charged particles, used mainly in rare-event searches thanks to their intrinsic high radiopurity. The core of such detectors (mesh, pillars, and readout) can be produced through standard photolithography techniques starting from a single foil of copper-coated kapton. In particular, the quality of the mesh resulting from this process plays a crucial role in particle detection, and also in the energy resolution. The aim of this paper is to provide for the first time a method that allows to probe the quality of the mesh through image processing techniques. This method has been applied to nine detectors.