Principle
According to Gauss' law, the charge collected on the Faraday cup is the induced charge, that means that the filter does not need to be a conductor. It is typically used to measure particles of unipolar charge, which are particles with a net charge concentration that equals the charge concentration of positively or negatively charged particles.
With an aerosol electrometer the transportation of charge by electrical charged aerosol particles can be measured as electric current.
In a metal housing (Faraday cup) a particle filter is mounted on an insulator. A Faraday cup is a detector that measures the current in a beam of charged (aerosol) particles. Faraday cups are used e.g. in mass spectrometers being an alternative to secondary electron multipliers. The advantage of the Faraday cup is its robustness and the possibility to measure the ion or electron stream absolutely. Furthermore the sensitiveness is constant by time and not mass-dependent. The simpliest form is the following: A Faraday detector consists of a metal cup, that is placed in the path of the particle beam. The aerosol has to pass the filter inside the cup. The filter has to be isolated. It is connected to the electrometer circuit which measures the current.
Read more about this topic: Faraday Cup Electrometer
Famous quotes containing the word principle:
“The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.”
—Jean Piaget (1896–1980)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“It were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet. The plant must spring again from its seed, or it will bear no flower—and this is the burthen of the curse of Babel.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)