How do particle detectors work?

[Kylonicus]

I would like to know how particle detectors work, if anyone could tell me, because I think there is a way to manipulate the uncertanity principle to produce energy, and I need a way to observe the particles so it changes their actions.

[swansont]

That's a rather open-ended question. There are lots of kinds of particle detectors. Cloud and spark chambers, scintillation counters and multi-channel plates, just to name a few. It depends on what you are trying to detect and what informaton you are tying to obtain.

[Kylonicus]

I am trying to observe electrons.

[swansont]

I am trying to observe electrons.

And what information are you trying to get?

 

You have electron multipliers, which will amplify the signal from a single electron in a cascade the electron hits a dynode, which ejects several elelctrons, and these are accelerated to a second stage, which emits more electrons, etc. The signal size can give some information about the electron energy.

 

A microchannel plate works in a similar fashion, but the micro-channels also localize the position of the electron. But I don't think you get as good information about the energy.

 

Faraday cups measure current, but not individual electrons.

 

You can have a fluorescent material on a screen with a photomultiplier (or several, for position information)

 

Cloud chambers use a supersaturated vapor that condenses when a charged particle passes through and leaves a track (also bubble chambers). You put a magnetic field on it and the track curvature tells you information about the energy, if you already know the charge and mass.

 

Geiger tubes amplify ionizations of a gas with a bias voltage that cause secondary ionizations.