Principle of Operation
Geiger counter instruments consist of two main elements; the Geiger-Muller tube and the processing and display electronics. The radiation sensing element is an inert gas-filled Geiger-Muller tube (usually containing helium, neon or argon with halogens added) which briefly conducts electrical charge when a particle or photon of radiation makes the gas conductive by ionization. The tube has the property of being able to amplify each ionization event by means of the avalanche effect and produces an easily measured current pulse which is passed to the processing electronics. The readout can be analogue or digital.
Read more about this topic: Geiger Counter
Famous quotes containing the words principle of, principle and/or operation:
“The principle of the brotherhood of man is ... narcissistic ... for the grounds for that love have always been the assumption that we ought to realize that we are the same the whole world over.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“Thus it seemed that this one hillside illustrated the principle of all the operations of Nature. The Maker of this earth but patented a leaf. What Champollion will decipher this hieroglyphic for us, that we may turn over a new leaf at last?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. The only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name of “Wut,” is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals.”
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845)