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:
“From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery.”
—Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890)
“Help thyself: then everyone will help thee too. Principle of Christian charity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Waiting for the race to become official, he began to feel as if he had as much effect on the final outcome of the operation as a single piece of a jumbo jigsaw puzzle has to its predetermined final design. Only the addition of the missing fragments of the puzzle would reveal if the picture was as he guessed it would be.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)