Talk:Spark chamber

Schneelocke: Thanks for the stub. I just read off "spark chamber" from my old lecture notes when writing the J/Psi article and briefly wondered how this thing might have worked but was too lazy to look it up. So thanks for the explanation. Simon A. 08:26, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. :) -- Schnee 14:11, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Don't know too much about this topic, but i know that this article is very lacking. (e.g. specifying that there are more than 2 plates, voltages involved, etc., etc.) -- postglock 16:21, 11 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree, I was curious if there are two plates or many but I figure it is two plates. Where do the sparks occur? Between the two plates, or in the whole box? -- User:Mark767 23:33, 05 October 2005 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware, I think that ionising particles travel across a whole bunch of plates, creating ions which spark across (perhaps) every pair of plates? (or between every plate?) I'm pretty sure that there are multiple plates though. The sparks across sets of plates maps out where the radiation is travelling. -- postglock 06:47, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

This page is innaccurate. While they are in roughly the same category of detectors, spark and streamer chambers are not the same, and nor is one a subset of the other. Therefore "A spark chamber (also known as a streamer chamber)..." is wrong, "streamer chamber" should not redirect here, and the image is inappropriate since it is from a streamer chamber rather than a spark chamber. A spark chamber is roughly as described in this article - you look at a stack of parallel plates from the the side, and the path of a particle is indicated by a series of sparks from plate plate like in this image: http://www.hep.phy.cam.ac.uk/~lester/teaching/SparkChamber/IMG_0082.jpg. The particle typically comes in roughly at right angles to the plates. A streamer chamber meanwhile typically has only two plates, at least one of which is see-through (e.g. wire mesh or a conductive glass). Particles come in roughly parallel to the plane of the plates. A much shorter high voltage pulse is used than with a spark chamber, so you don't get breakdown and no sparks are formed. Instead you get streamers (which are sort of pre-sparks which han't yet reached either electrode). These are are rather dim, but can look quite brilliant with some image enhancement, e.g. http://mediaarchive.cern.ch/MediaArchive/Photo/Public/1992/9207077/9207077/9207077-A4-at-144-dpi.jpg. Here is a brief description (towards the bottom): http://www.shef.ac.uk/physics/teaching/phy311/gaseous.html. -- Dumdidldumdum (talk) 20:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The newer stuff really more sophisticated? Or just happened to find out how to do stuff better.(in a sense) How do you verify something to be 'more sophisticated'? 192.16.199.199 (talk) 15:04, 11 April 2011 (UTC)