In experimental and applied particle physics, nuclear physics, and nuclear engineering, a particle detector, also known as a radiation detector, is a device used to detect, track, and/or identify ionizing particles, such as those produced by nuclear decay, cosmic radiation, or reactions in a particle accelerator. Detectors can measure the particle energy and other attributes such as momentum, spin, charge, particle type, in addition to merely registering the presence of the particle.
Examples and types
Summary of particle detector 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 Čerenkov light and transition radiation.
Cloud chambers visualize particles by creating a supersaturated layer of vapor. Particles passing through this region create cloud tracks similar to condensation trails of planes
Recording of a bubble chamber at CERN
Historical examples
Bubble chamber
Wilson cloud chamber (diffusion chamber)
Photographic plate
Detectors for radiation protection
The following types of particle detector are widely used for radiation protection, and are commercially produced in large quantities for general use within the nuclear, medical, and environmental fields.
- Dosimeter
- Electroscope (when used as a portable dosimeter)
- Gaseous ionization detector
- Geiger–Müller tube
- Ionization chamber
- Proportional counter
- Scintillation counter
- Semiconductor detector
Commonly used detectors for particle and nuclear physics
- Gaseous ionization detector
- Ionization chamber
- Proportional counter
- Multiwire proportional chamber
- Drift chamber
- Time projection chamber
- Micropattern gaseous detector
- Geiger–Müller tube
- Spark chamber
- Solid-state detectors:
- Semiconductor detector and variants including CCDs
- Silicon Vertex Detector
- Solid-state nuclear track detector
- Cherenkov detector
- Ring-imaging Cherenkov detector (RICH)
- Scintillation counter and associated photomultiplier, photodiode, or avalanche photodiode
- Lucas cell
- Time of flight detector
- Transition radiation detector
- Semiconductor detector and variants including CCDs
- Calorimeter
- Microchannel plate detector
- Neutron detector
Modern detectors
Main article: Hermetic detector
Modern detectors in particle physics combine several of the above elements in layers much like an onion.
Research particle detectors
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 can also usually track ionizing radiation (high energy photons or even visible light). If their main purpose is radiation measurement, they are called radiation detectors, but as photons are also (massless) particles, the term particle detector is still correct.
At colliders
- At CERN
- for the LHC
- CMS
- ATLAS
- ALICE
- LHCb
- for the LEP
- Aleph[1]
- Delphi[2]
- L3
- Opal[3]
- for the SPS
- The COMPASS Experiment
- Gargamelle
- NA61/SHINE
- for the LHC
- At Fermilab
- for the Tevatron
- CDF
- D0
- Mu2e
- for the Tevatron
- At DESY
- for HERA
- H1
- HERA-B
- HERMES
- ZEUS
- for HERA
- At BNL
- for the RHIC
- PHENIX
- Phobos
- STAR
- for the RHIC
- At SLAC
- for the PeP-II
- BaBar
- for the SLC
- SLD
- for the PeP-II
- At Cornell
- for CESR
- CLEO
- CUSB
- for CESR
- At BINP
- for the VEPP-2M and VEPP-2000
- ND
- SND
- CMD
- for the VEPP-4
- KEDR
- for the VEPP-2M and VEPP-2000
- Others
- MECO from UC Irvine
Under construction
For International Linear Collider (ILC)
- CALICE (Calorimeter for Linear Collider Experiment)
Without colliders
- Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA)
- Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS)
- Super-Kamiokande
- XENON
On spacecraft
- Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS)
- JEDI (Jupiter Energetic-particle Detector Instrument)
See also
Counting efficiency
List of particles
Tail-pulse generator
References
Jones, R. Clark (1949). "A New Classification System for Radiation Detectors". Journal of the Optical Society of America. 39 (5): 327–341. doi:10.1364/JOSA.39.000327.
Jones, R. Clark (1949). "Erratum: The Ultimate Sensitivity of Radiation Detectors". Journal of the Optical Society of America. 39 (5): 343. doi:10.1364/JOSA.39.000343.
Jones, R. Clark (1949). "Factors of Merit for Radiation Detectors". Journal of the Optical Society of America. 39 (5): 344–356. doi:10.1364/JOSA.39.000344.
Further reading
Filmstrips
"Radiation detectors". H. M. Stone Productions, Schloat. Tarrytown, N.Y., Prentice-Hall Media, 1972.
General Information
Grupen, C. (June 28 – July 10, 1999). "Physics of Particle Detection". AIP Conference Proceedings, Instrumentation in Elementary Particle Physics, VIII. 536. Istanbul: Dordrecht, D. Reidel Publishing Co. pp. 3–34. arXiv:physics/9906063. doi:10.1063/1.1361756.
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