Uploaded June 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The cloud chamber is the earliest ancestor of contemporary particle detectors. It's basically a sealed fishbowl-like container, filled with a cooled supersaturated vapor of methanol and water, placed in obscurity with a single source of dim light. When a charged particle passes through the mixture it ionizes and leaves a detectable trace of condensation. It can be used to observe cosmic radiation, sources of radioactivity,... any passage of alpha or beta particle through the cloud.
The technique of ionization through gas is still being used in the large contemporary particle accelerators, often filling up parrallel glass sheets with ethanol vapour and having these sheets catch the debris of particle collisions, as one of many ways these detectors meassure what the properties of the subatomic 'spatters' are.
The cloud chamber is the earliest ancestor of contemporary particle detectors. It's basically a sealed fishbowl-like container, filled with a cooled supersaturated vapor of methanol and water, placed in obscurity with a single source of dim light. When a charged particle passes through the mixture it ionizes and leaves a detectable trace of condensation. It can be used to observe cosmic radiation, sources of radioactivity,... any passage of alpha or beta particle through the cloud.
The technique of ionization through gas is still being used in the large contemporary particle accelerators, often filling up parrallel glass sheets with ethanol vapour and having these sheets catch the debris of particle collisions, as one of many ways these detectors meassure what the properties of the subatomic 'spatters' are.
