Particle detector
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In experimental and applied particle physics and nuclear engineering, a particle detector, also known as a radiation detector, is a device used to detect, track, and/or identify high-energy particles, such as produced by nuclear decay, cosmic radiation, or reactions in a particle accelerator. Modern detectors are also used as calorimeters to measure energy of the detected radiation. They may also be used to measure other attributes such as momentum, spin, charge etc. of the particles.
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[edit] Description
Detectors designed for modern accelerators are huge, both in size and in cost. The term "counter" is often used instead of detector, when the detector counts the particles but does not resolve its energy or ionization. Particle detectors usually can also track ionizing radiation (high energy photons or even visible light). If their main purpose is radiation measurement, they are called radiation detector, but as photons can also be seen as (massless) particles, the term particle detector is still correct.
[edit] Examples and types
Many of the detectors invented and used so far are ionization detectors (of which gaseous ionization detectors and semiconductor detectors are most typical) and scintillation detectors; but other, completely different principles have also been applied, like Cherenkov light and transition radiation.
Historical Examples
- Bubble chamber
- Wilson cloud chamber, Diffusion chamber
Detectors for Radiation Protection
- Dosimeter
- Electroscope (miniature electroscopes are used as portable dosimeters)
Commonly used detectors for Particle and Nuclear Physics
- Calorimeter
- Time of flight detector
- Photographic plates
- Cherenkov detector, Aerogel detector
- Transition radiation detector
- Scintillation counter and associated Photomultiplier or Photodiode/Avalanche photodiode
- Semiconductor detector
- Gaseous ionization detectors
- Ionization chamber, Proportional counter, Geiger-Müller tube
- Drift chamber,Jet chamber
- MicroStrip Gas Chamber (MSGC)
- Multiwire Proportional Chamber (MWPC)
- Resistive Plate Chamber
- Spark chamber,Wire chamber
- Straw chamber
- Streamer tube
- Time projection chamber (TPC)
- Z-sensitive Ionization and Phonon Detector coupled Superconducting Transition Edge Sensors (ZIP detectors)
[edit] Modern detectors
Modern detectors in particle physics combine several of the above elements in layers much like an onion.
[edit] Installations of particle detectors
[edit] At colliders
[edit] Without colliders
[edit] See also
[edit] External articles and references
- Filmstrips
- "Radiation detectors". H. M. Stone Productions, Schloat. Tarrytown, N.Y., Prentice-Hall Media, 1972.
- General Information
