Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) for accurate time-of-flight measurements were introduced 10 years ago, allowing thus for particle identification. Within this short period, the new technology has displaced scintillators as a prime option for virtually all the newly built time-of-flight walls at medium and high energies (HARP-PS, ALICE-LHC, HADES,FOPI-SIS18, STAR-RHIC, CBM,R3B-SIS100/300). Their success is connected to their very large affordability for the coverage of large areas with resolutions comparable or better than state of the art scintillators. Besides, they offer a very desirable property for the researcher: simplicity of operation and stability. Due to the usage of insulating materials in a smart configuration RPCs are one of the few gaseous detectors that can operate, inherently, in a spark-free mode. It will be shown that 'simplicity of operation' is not equivalent to 'simplicity'. RPCs require a remarkable synergic effort between different areas of knowledge, including material science, tele-communications, chemistry and gaseous electronics at extreme fields. An overview of the present experimental and theoretical situation will be given, from the perspective of the R&D carried out at SIS18 and SIS100/300 (GSI-FAIR, Darmstadt, Germany).

 

1999 Bachelor in Physics with a major in Particle Physics, for the University of Santiago de Compostela, (USC), Spain.

2001 Master of Science in Particle Physics and non-linear dynamics 2006 PhD in Particle Physics (USC).

2006-2010 Post-doc position at GSI-Darmstadt, Germany.

2010- Post-doc position at TU-Darmstadt, Germany.

Former member of the HADES collaboration and designed time of flight system with MRPC. Present member of the CBM and R3B collaborations.

Member of the International Advisory Committee for Resistive Plate Chambers and related detectors.

He obtained great accomplishment in the design and simulation of timing RPC.