Wire chamber

A multi-wire proportional chamber is a type of proportional counter that detects charged particles and photons and can give positional information on their trajectory, by tracking the trails of gaseous ionization.

Description

The multi-wire chamber uses an array of wires at high voltage (anode), which run through a chamber with conductive walls held at ground potential (cathode). Alternatively, the wires may be at ground potential and the cathode held at a high negative voltage; the important thing is that a uniform electric field draws extra electrons or negative ions to the anode wires with little lateral motion.

The chamber is filled with carefully chosen gas, such as an argon/methane mix, such that any ionizing particle that passes through the tube will ionize surrounding gaseous atoms. The resulting ions and electrons are accelerated by the electric field across the chamber, causing a localised cascade of ionization known as a Townsend avalanche. This collects on the nearest wire and results in a charge proportional to the ionisation effect of the detected particle. By computing pulses from all the wires, the particle trajectory can be found.