A scintillation counter is an instrument for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation.
It consists of a scintillator which generates photons of light in response to incident radiation, a sensitive photomultiplier tube which converts the light to an electrical signal, and the necessary electronics to process the photomultiplier tube output.
Scintillation counters are widely used because they can be made inexpensively yet with good quantum efficiency and can measure both the intensity and the energy of incident radiation.
Read more about Scintillation Counter: Operation, Detection Materials, Applications, Alpha and Beta Contamination Detection, Scintillation Counter As A Spectrometer, History
Famous quotes containing the word counter:
“The technological landscape of the present day has enfranchised its own electorates—the inhabitants of marketing zones in the consumer goods society, television audiences and news magazine readerships... vote with money at the cash counter rather than with the ballot paper at the polling booth.”
—J.G. (James Graham)