Particle detector

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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.

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.

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

Detectors for Radiation Protection

Dosimeter
Electroscope (miniature electroscopes are used as portable dosimeters)

Commonly used detectors for Particle and Nuclear Physics

RICH (Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector)

Lucas cell

Z-sensitive Ionization and Phonon Detector coupled Superconducting Transition Edge Sensors (ZIP detectors)

Modern detectors

Modern detectors in particle physics combine several of the above elements in layers much like an onion.

Installations of particle detectors

At colliders

At CERN

for the LHC

for the LEP

for the SPS

At Fermilab

for the Tevatron

At DESY

for HERA

At BNL

for the RHIC

At SLAC

for the PeP-II

BaBar

for the SLC

At Cornell

for CESR

CLEO
CUSB

Others

MECO from UC Irvine

Without colliders

Super-Kamiokande
[[Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array|AMANDA]eiectron]]

External articles and references

Filmstrips

"Radiation detectors". H. M. Stone Productions, Schloat. Tarrytown, N.Y., Prentice-Hall Media, 1972. General Information
The Particle Detector BriefBook
How to Build a Cloud Chamber

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Last updated on Saturday July 19, 2008 at 14:01:12 PDT (GMT -0700)
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