Gaseous micropattern detectors in astrophysics, radiology and plasma physics

Multiwire gaseous detectors have matured in the last few decades with major implications in particle physics experiments, they have also been successfully refined for use in other fields: X-rays for medical imaging, UV and single photon detection, neutron and crystal diffraction studies etc. Their major limitation has been a modest rate capability (/spl sim/10/sup 3//mm/sup 2/). In the last decade several micropattern position sensitive gas devices have been introduced with an inherently improved rate capability (few MHz/mm/sup 2/) and a localization accuracy of 40-50 /spl mu/m. They are being extensively pursued for their application in several fields. A state-of-the-art of this new generation of gaseous detectors will be reviewed.