Particle detector

A particle detector records the passage or interaction of subatomic particles and measures properties such as energy, momentum, charge, or identity.

Ionization chamber: A gas-filled detector that measures electric charge produced when radiation ionizes the gas. It converts particle-induced ionization directly into a measurable electrical signal.
Ionization: The formation of ions when atoms or molecules lose or gain electrons. Charged particles often announce their passage by ionizing detector material.
Geiger–Müller counter: A gas-filled detector that produces a large electrical pulse when ionizing radiation triggers an avalanche discharge. It provides a simple count of radioactive events, without measuring their energy precisely.
Bubble chamber: A detector that records charged-particle tracks as bubbles in a superheated liquid. Bubble-chamber photographs provided detailed visual records of particle interactions.
Scintillation counter: A detector that converts deposited energy into flashes of light and measures them with a photosensor. Its light pulses provide a practical way to register and estimate particle energy.
Particle tracking: The reconstruction of charged-particle trajectories from spatial measurements in detector layers. Track positions reveal direction and, in a magnetic field, momentum and charge sign.
Neutrino detector: An instrument designed to observe neutrinos through the rare interactions they produce in target material. Neutrinos require massive targets and sensitive systems because they interact so weakly.
Super-Kamiokande: A large water Cherenkov observatory in Japan used to study neutrinos and proton decay. Its neutrino observations revealed flavor change through direction-dependent atmospheric signals.
Cloud chamber: A detector in which charged particles leave visible trails of condensed droplets in supersaturated vapor. Its tracks make charged-particle paths visible through the vapor they ionize.
Calorimetry: The measurement of a particle’s energy through the energy it deposits in an absorber. Calorimeters estimate energy from showers produced inside dense detector material.

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