  Gas time projection chambers (TPCs) with Micromegas pixelated readouts are
being used in dark matter searches and other rare event searches, due to their
potential in terms of low background levels, energy and spatial resolution,
gain, and operational stability. Moreover, these detectors can provide precious
features,such as topological information, allowing for event directionality and
powerful signal-background discrimination. The Micromegas technology of the
microbulk type is particularly suited to low-background applications and is
being exploited by detectors for CAST and IAXO (solar axions) and TREX-DM
(low-mass WIMPs) experiments. Challenges for the future include reducing
intrinsic background levels, reaching lower energy detection levels, and
technical issues such as robustness of detector, new design choices, novel gas
mixtures and operation points, scaling up to larger detector sizes, handling
large readout granularity, etc. We report on the status and prospects of the
development ongoing in the context of IAXO and TREX-DM experiments, pointing to
promising perspectives for the use of Micromegas detectors in directdark matter
searches
