Geiger counter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Any material not supported by sources may be challenged and removed at any time. This article has been tagged since April 2007.

Modern geiger counter.

A Geiger counter, also called a Geiger-Müller counter, is a type of particle detector that measures ionizing radiation.

1 Description
2 Types and applications
3 History
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Description

Geiger counters are used to detect ionizing radiation, usually alpha and beta radiation, but also other types of radiation as well. The sensor is a Geiger-Müller tube, an inert gas-filled tube (usually Helium, Neon or Argon with Halogens added) that briefly conducts electricity when a particle or photon of radiation temporarily makes the gas conductive. The tube amplifies this conduction by a cascade effect and outputs a current pulse, which is then often displayed by a needle or lamp and/or audible clicks. Modern instruments can report radioactivity over several orders of magnitude. Some Geiger counters can also be used to detect gamma radiation, though sensitivity can be lower for high energy gamma radiation than with certain other types of detector, due to the fact that the density of the gas in the device is usually low, allowing most high energy gamma photons to pass through undetected (lower energy photons are easier to detect, and are better absorbed by the detector. Examples of this are the X-ray Pancake Geiger Tube). A better device for detecting gamma rays is a sodium iodide scintillation counter. Good alpha and beta scintillation counters also exist, but Geiger detectors are still favored as general purpose alpha/beta/gamma portable contamination and dose rate instruments, due to their low cost and robustness. A variation of the Geiger tube is used to measure neutrons, where the gas used is Boron Trifluoride and a plastic moderator is used to slow the neutrons. This creates a gamma ray inside the detector and thus neutrons can be counted.

[edit] Types and applications

The Geiger-Müller tube is one form of a class of radiation detectors called gaseous detectors or simply gas detectors. Although useful, cheap and robust, a counter using a GM tube can only detect the presence and intensity of radiation. Gas detectors with the ability to both detect radiation and determine particle energy levels (due to their construction, test gas, and associated electronics) are called proportional counters. Some proportional counters can detect the position and or angle of the incident radiation as well. Other devices detecting radiation include: ionization chamber, dosimeters, photomultiplier, semiconductor detectors and variants including CCDs, microchannel plates, scintillation counters, solid-state track detectors, cloud chambers, bubble chambers, spark chambers, neutron detectors and microcalorimeters.

The Geiger-Müller counter has applications in the fields of nuclear physics, geophysics (mining) and medical therapy with isotopes and x-rays. Some of the proportional counter have many internal wires and electrodes and are called multi-wire proportional counters or simply MWPCs. Radiation detectors have also been used extensively in nuclear physics, medicine, particle physics, astronomy and in industry.

[edit] History

Cold War era Survey Meter (This is a Ion Chamber, not a Geiger Counter

Hans Geiger developed a device (that would later be called the "Geiger counter") in 1908 together with Ernest Rutherford. This counter was only capable of detecting alpha particles. In 1928, Geiger and Walther Müller (a PhD student of Geiger) improved the counter so that it could detect all kinds of ionizing radiation.

The current version of the "Geiger counter" is called the halogen counter. It was invented in 1947 by Sidney H. Liebson (Phys. Rev. 72, 602–608 (1947)). It has superseded the earlier Geiger counter because of its much longer life. The devices also used a lower operating voltage.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Patents

Electric lamps and discharge devices of the Geiger-Müller type (Class 313/93)

U.S. Patent 625823 , K. Zickler, "Telegraphy by means of electric light"
U.S. Patent 685958 , N. Tesla, "Method of ultilizing radiant energy"
U.S. Patent 1589833 , H. Benhken, "Measuring device for the examination of electromagetic waves"
U.S. Patent 1855669 , O. Glasser, "Method and apparatus for the measurement of radiation intensity"
U.S. Patent 1995018 , H. J. Spanner, "Gas Filled Tube"
U.S. Patent 2081041 , H. Kott, "Apparatus for measuring radiation"
U.S. Patent 2141655 , H. Kott, "Radiation sensitive device"
U.S. Patent 2145866 , G. Failla, "Electrotechnique"
U.S. Patent 2168464 , S. Yeda, "Roentgenometer"
U.S. Patent 2197453 , G. L. Hassler, "Method of underground exploration"
U.S. Patent 2221374 , P. T. Farnsworth, "X-Ray projection device"
U.S. Patent 2257827 , G. J. Weissenberg, "Electron Discharge Tube"
U.S. Patent 2397071 , D. G. C. Hare, "Radiation detector"
U.S. Patent 2397072 , D. G. C. Hare, "Radiation detector"
U.S. Patent 2397073 , D. G. C. Hare, "Radiation detector"
U.S. Patent 2397074 , D. G. C. Hare, "Radiation detector"
U.S. Patent 2397075 , D. G. C. Hare, "Radiation detector"
U.S. Patent 2398934 , D. G. C. Hare, "Radiation detector"
U.S. Patent 2440511 , D. G. C. Hare, "Radiation detector"
U.S. Patent 2449697 , A. Graves, "Ionization chambers, Geiger Müller tubes, and the like"
U.S. Patent 2397661 , D. G. C. Hare, "Radiation detector"
U.S. Patent 2521315 , J. A. Victoreen, "Geiger tube"
U.S. Patent 2542440 , J. A. Victoreen, "Geiger tube"