Frame2004 A HISTORY OF RADIATION DETECTION INSTRUMENTATION PDF
Frame2004 A HISTORY OF RADIATION DETECTION INSTRUMENTATION PDF
Frame2004 A HISTORY OF RADIATION DETECTION INSTRUMENTATION PDF
Paul W. Frame*
Later, during the development of the film (or plates), Bertha. But it was not elation or a sense of history that
these specks of metallic silver serve as catalysts that Mrs. Roentgen felt upon seeing it. When shown the
speed up the chemical reduction of the crystals. It is the “ghostly shadow” of the bones of her hand, she shud-
resulting conversion of the silver bromide to metallic dered with a vague premonition of death (Glasser 1958).
silver that gives the film its dark color (for a more In the early days of x-ray photography, extremely
detailed discussion, consult Attix and Roesch 1966). long exposure times were required, often an hour or
After the film is removed from the developer, it is more. Unfortunately, the results were often faint and
washed and transferred into a fixative that dissolves the lacking contrast. To compensate, attempts were made to
unreduced silver bromide. Any residual fixative is then boost the contrast and image density by making paper
washed off. Now that the silver bromide has been prints from the negative image roentgenograms. Faster
removed, the film can be exposed to the light and films were sought out, thicker emulsions were used,
analyzed. double emulsions were tried, and plates were “sensi-
tized” with various types of solutions. One partial im-
Photographic detection of radiation prior to provement, pioneered by Michael Pupin of Columbia
Roentgen University, involved the use of intensifying screens. By
In 1858, in the second of a series of presentations to placing the photographic plate in contact with a screen of
the French Academy of Sciences on the subject, Claude calcium tungstate, the direct action of the x rays on the
Félix Abel Niepce de St. Victor observed that “a design plate was supplemented with the light emitted by the
traced on a sheet of cardboard with a solution of uranyl fluorescent screen. Exposure times were reduced, but at
nitrate . . . and applied on a sheet of sensitive paper a price: the resulting images, like all the fluoroscopic
prepared with silver bromide, imprints its image.” Years images of the time, were grainy. Furthermore, any
later, in the 1884 edition of the Encyclopédie Chimique, non-uniformities in the intensifying screen were reflected
Alfred Ditte commented that “the salts of uranium are in the images.
capable, long after the exposure to sunlight, of shining At first, glass plates were preferred to paper or film,
invisible rays around themselves, at least the fact seems although the latter was the medium of choice in dentistry
to result from the curious experiments of M. Niepce de where its flexibility made it convenient for positioning in
St. Victor.” That the 1903 Nobel Prize awarded for the the mouth. Eventually, however, the tide would turn in
discovery of radioactivity did not go to Niepce has been favor of film, and WWI served as the catalyst. Until then,
described by Paul and Josette Fournier (1990) as a case the glass used in the production of photographic plates
of collective amnesia. Henri Becquerel did receive the had been manufactured in Belgium, but the war in
award, and his one documented comment concerning Europe effectively halted the supply. Out of necessity,
Niepce’s experiments (1903) left no doubt as to who he physicians began a switch to film, a switch that acceler-
thought deserved it: “Uranium is in quantity so weak on ated in the 1920’s when safety film (cellulose acetate)
these [photographic] papers that to be able to produce an became commercially available and significantly faster
appreciable impression on the plates that the author emulsions were developed (Fuchs 1956).
[Niepce] used would require several months of exposure.
M. Niepce therefore could not have observed the radia-
tion of uranium.” Film for dosimetry
Becquerel might have been right. Chemical vapors The first to employ film as a personnel dosimeter
from the uranium, not radiation, could have produced the seems to have been Rome Wagner, a Chicago manufac-
images on Niepce’s photographic paper. It is even turer of x-ray tubes. In his address at the 1907 meeting of
possible that Becquerel felt a bit of sympathy for Niepce. the American Roentgen Ray Society, Wagner described
After all, the action of chemical vapors on his own how he tried to protect himself from accidental exposures
photographic plates might have explained Becquerel’s in the course of inspecting malfunctioning x-ray units:
somewhat embarrassing initial report (1896) that calcium “The thing is to know whether you have exposed
sulfide, as well as uranium, was a strong source of yourself during the day . . . I concluded that I would not
invisible radiation. take chances with any ray that would affect a photo-
graphic plate, so I carry one in my pocket, and in the
The early days of photographic imaging evening, after the day’s work, I develop this film to see
Wilhelm Roentgen was the first to knowingly em- whether I have been exposed.” Of course, protection and
ploy photography for the detection and imaging of detection are two different things. Within six months,
radiation. Without doubt, the most famous of his x-ray Wagner died of radiation-induced metastatic cancer of
images is the one that he took of the hand of his wife the liver (Brecher and Brecher 1969).
A history of radiation detection instrumentation ● P. W. FRAME 113
Photographic dosimetry experienced its first major Nevertheless, as the following recommendations
leap forward during World War II as a result of the from NBS Handbook 51 (1952) indicate, a purely visual
urgent need to monitor enormous numbers of Manhattan evaluation of film darkening was used long after WWII,
District workers. Film was selected because it was at least for low doses: “When visual comparison with
reliable and it required far less handling and servicing control films exposed to known amounts of radiation . . .
than the only alternative, a pocket chamber. The first indicates more than one-fifth of the permissible value, the
obstacle to overcome was the over-response of the film film densities should be measured with a quantitative
(Dupont 502 dental film packets) to low energy photons. densitometer.” It might be worth mentioning that there are
The solution that Ernest Wollan and his small group of alternatives to the optical evaluation of film, e.g., the silver
health physicists came up with was to incorporate a 1 mm content of the processed film can be determined by x-ray
thick cadmium filter into the badge to flatten out the fluorescence analysis.
response (Pardue et al. 1944). Their second problem was Perhaps the first major development in photographic
to devise a reproducible method to quantify the darken- dosimetry after WWII was the proposal by Tochilin and
ing of the processed film. Prior to WWII, the methods coworkers (1950) to use multiple filters (aluminum and
employed to evaluate film dosimeters were imprecise at copper) to estimate the effective energy of the photons to
best, e.g., at one facility an acceptable exposure was which the film was exposed. Even so, the use of filtration
indicated if a newspaper could be read through the to estimate radiation energy had been pioneered 50 years
processed film (Andrews 1988). The method that Wollan earlier by the Frenchman Louis Benoist (1902). His
and his coworkers came up with was to measure the “penetrometer,” designed to measure the quality (energy)
blackening with a commercial spectrometer. What was of x rays, consisted of a thin silver disk in the center of
then called “blackening,” we refer to today as the optical a ring of aluminum steps of different thicknesses. The
density: the log of the ratio of the intensity of the light step that produced the same reduction in the x-ray
transmitted through an unexposed film to that transmitted intensity as the silver disk when imaged with film or a
through the exposed film. The idea was not new; this fluoroscope was a measure of the radiation quality or
same approach had been used decades earlier by radiol- energy in “B units.”
ogists to measure the intensity of x rays (Fig. 1). To be sure, some innovative ideas never panned out.
Take the case of the self-developing film dosimeter
patented (1954) by Edwin Land of the Polaroid Corpo-
ration. The film was contained in a small circular packet
along with all the necessary chemical reagents. When-
ever or wherever the wearer needed to determine the
severity of their exposure, the container containing the
chemicals was ruptured and the packet was placed inside
the mouth. By squeezing the packet against the roof of
the mouth with the tongue, a uniform distribution of the
chemicals was ensured over the film. The packet was
then left in the mouth for a specified time before being
removed and evaluated. The wonderful thing about this
was that the processing could be performed indoors or
outdoors, in any weather, without any special equipment,
at a controlled standardized temperature, 98 degrees
Fahrenheit.
CALORIMETERS
The earliest recorded use of calorimetry in the
radiological sciences was an attempt by Friedrich Dorn
in 1897 to measure the energy emitted from an x-ray
tube. He did so by exposing metal plates inside a sealed
vessel to the x-ray beam and measuring the increased
Fig. 1. Ernest Wollan’s film badge from the Metallurgical Labo-
pressure of the gas in the vessel. It was a logical next step
ratory (ca. 1943). An example of the first mass produced film to use calorimetry in the analysis of radioactive materials
badge. Wollan was the first to use the title “health physicist.” and the first to do so were Pierre Curie and Albert
114 Health Physics August 2004, Volume 87, Number 2
Laborde (1904) who in 1903 used the technique to yellow-orange when exposed to x rays. The Sabouraud-
quantify the energy emission rate of radium. These Noiré pastilles, positioned half way between the tube’s
gentlemen would have been pleased to know that the target (anticathode) and the area being exposed, had a
same method would be used half a century later by simple function. When the pastille color changed from its
Wilfred Mann for comparing the radium standards at the original light green (“teinte A”) to a dark yellow (“teinte
U.S. National Bureau of Standards (Mann 1954). B”), the physician knew that a dose appropriate for the
Calorimetric measurements are usually performed treatment of ringworm had been delivered. Bordier’s
by one of four general methods (Posey 1963): measuring pastilles, placed directly on the patient’s body, used the
the rate of temperature increase in a material with a following scale of four colors: teinte I (epilation after 20
known heat capacity; measuring the temperature gradient days); teinte II (erythema); teinte III (dermatitis); and
along a heat path (e.g., metal bar) under steady state teinte IV (ulceration and necrosis) (Fig. 2).
conditions; measuring the temperature increase in a Also popular was Robert Kienbock’s “quantimeter,”
continual stream of cooling fluid; and measuring liquid which employed strips of silver bromide paper placed on
evaporation rates. Aside from the fact that the equipment the part of the body being x-rayed (Kienbock 1905). The
is rugged and easy to use, the undeniable attraction of degree of darkening was compared with a standard scale
calorimetry is that it is an absolute measurement of the of 10 shades called X units. This, of course, was a
energy emission rate, a quantity every bit as fundamental photographic rather than colorimetric dosimeter.
as the decay rate. It is especially well suited to the While the relative responses of these dosimetric
measurement of high activity pure alpha and pure beta systems depended on the quality of the x rays, it was
emitters (e.g., 90Sr in radioactive thermoelectric genera- commonly assumed that Sabouraud-Noiré’s teinte B was
tors) when it would be impractical to remove the sources more or less equivalent to five Holzkhnect (5 H), or ten
from their encapsulations. If calorimetry can be said to Kienbock (10 X) units. These types of dosimeters con-
have a lukewarm reputation, it is due to the fact that the tinued to be used into the 1930’s (Hudson 1932), but they
methodology does not lend itself to routine work. ultimately fell victim to the advance of technology, e.g.,
the Victoreen condenser R chamber that could make
COLOR DOSIMETERS accurate and energy-independent measurements of x-ray
intensity.
The first commercial radiation dosimeter seems to The major virtue of colorimetric dosimeters is their
have been the “chromoradiometer.” Developed by Guido simple mode of operation. That simplicity, and the fact
Holzknecht in 1902, it employed a yellow disk that that they can provide an immediate estimate of high
turned darker following an exposure to x rays. The disk doses, has not been lost on the military. In the 1950’s,
was placed on the portion of the body being x-rayed, and faced with a possible need to determine the survivability
after the exposure its color was compared with a standard of troops that had received significant exposures from a
scale of various shades of yellow. Each shade corre-
sponded to an incremental exposure of “1 H” (H for
Holzknecht), the minimum exposure that would result in
a discoloration. One H unit was roughly equivalent to
one third of the exposure that would result in erythema.
Unfortunately, the change in color was rather subtle and
it could be affected by temperature and humidity. For
these reasons, and the fact that many in the medical
community resented that Holzknecht would not reveal
the chemicals he used in his device, the chromoradiom-
eter was not very popular. Over the years, this mystery
substance has variously been reported as potassium
chloride and sodium carbonate, or hydrogen chloride and
sodium carbonate (Glasser 1956; Hudson 1932).
More popular, especially among dermatologists,
was the dosimeter developed by Raymond Sabouraud
and Henri Noiré (1904), and a very similar device
Fig. 2. Dr. Hampson’s Roentgen Radiometer (ca. 1910 –1925).
developed by Léonard Bordier (1906). These dosimeters Note the six small half-moon shaped pastilles coated with barium
employed small disks (called pastilles) of barium plati- platinocyanide. Their color change is determined by reference to
nocyanide, which would change from a green to a dark the graded scale of 25 shades (0 –24) on the rotating disk.
A history of radiation detection instrumentation ● P. W. FRAME 115
nuclear explosion, the U.S. Army deployed the color ion chamber was employed to measure the intensity of
dosimeter shown in Fig. 3. Each dosimeter employed x-ray beams, but Rutherford soon extended this tech-
five glass vials filled with a radiation sensitive solution: nique to the analysis of uranium and other radioactive
brom-creosol purple dissolved in chloroform. An expo- materials (1899).
sure to gamma radiation turned the solution from purple The ion chamber is a particularly important instru-
to yellow (Taplin et al. 1951; Taplin 1956). Although this ment for the health physicist because the accuracy of its
device used a somewhat different reaction, the basic idea response is close to being energy independent, a charac-
can be traced to the observation by Hardy and Wilcock in teristic that makes the ion chamber particularly useful for
1903 that an iodine containing chloroform solution measurements at low energies where the response of
turned purple when exposed to radium or x rays. other instruments can change rapidly with energy. This
energy independence is due to a variety of factors, e.g.,
the ion chamber is typically constructed of air equivalent
IONIZATION CHAMBERS
walls, it operates in the current mode, and the W value
The beginnings (the average energy absorbed per ion pair produced) is
Within a couple of months of Wilhelm Roentgen’s independent of the energy of the charged particles. For
discovery of x rays, J.J. Thomson (1896a, b) demon- what it is worth, Rutherford introduced the concept of the
strated that this new type of radiation could make a W value in a paper describing his attempts to improve
normally insulating material, such as air, conductive. upon Dorn’s use of calorimetry to measure the energy
Together with Ernest Rutherford (1896), he hypothesized output of x-ray tubes (Rutherford and McLung 1900).
that x rays ionized the air by stripping small negatively
charged particles, now called electrons, from the mole- Configuration of ion chambers
cules of the air. Rutherford and Thomson recognized that Since ion chambers don’t employ gas multiplication,
if this ionization occurred between two conductive plates high electric field strengths are not required. This pro-
given opposite charges, the electric field could prevent a vides great latitude for the dimensions and spacing of the
recombination of the ions, and the resulting decrease in electrodes, and, as a result, there are probably more
the charges on the plates could serve as a measure of the different configurations of ion chambers than any other
x-ray intensity. Their next step was to modify the system instrument. Nevertheless, as early as 1912, Walter Ma-
so that a fixed potential was maintained between the kower and Geiger could describe two basic forms of ion
plates during the exposure to the x rays. The intensity of chambers. The first consists of a cylindrical chamber
the latter was then measured via the chamber’s current. (usually a few hundred cm3 in volume) with a rod
An early and crucial observation was that this current running along the central axis that serves as the anode. In
would “saturate” at sufficiently high potentials. In other the second basic configuration, the electrodes consist of
words, all the ion pairs produced in the air of the chamber two parallel conductive plates a few centimeters apart.
were being collected and a further increase in the applied
high voltage would not change the current. At first their Free air ionization chamber
The free-air, or standard, ion chamber is an instru-
ment that everyone has read about but few have actually
seen (Fig. 4). As best as this author can determine, the
basic design was developed by Gino Failla (1929) in
response to the establishment of the Roentgen as the first
formal measure of x-ray intensity. The free air ion
chamber comes as close as possible to allowing a direct
measurement of the quantity exposure. It does so by
measuring the charge of the ions collected in a specific
volume of air due to the interactions of x rays (or gamma
rays)—this volume of air is defined by the dimensions of
the parallel plate electrodes and the x-ray beam. There is
something of the chicken and egg issue here since the
definition of the roentgen was constrained by the desire
that the quantity be measurable (one can only wish that
the same consideration had been given to the measur-
ability of other quantities). The roentgen was defined in
Fig. 3. U.S. Army colorimetric dosimeter (1950’s). air for two reasons. First, when normalized to mass, air is
116 Health Physics August 2004, Volume 87, Number 2
grid ion chamber (Frisch 1944), an alpha particle spec- This basic design remained unchanged through most
trometer, has a resolution that compares favorably to that of the 1800’s until the discoveries of x rays and radio-
of semiconductor detectors. activity spurred the development of instruments that
In most situations, however, the small size of the would be capable of more reliable and quantitative
individual pulses necessitates that the ion chamber oper- measurements. Certainly, the tilted electroscope of CTR
ate in an integrating mode. There are two ways in which Wilson and the Wulf bifilar electroscope have to be
this can be done. The first is to operate the system as a included among the more significant of the new designs,
passive condenser wherein the rate at which a stored as does the electroscope of Charles Cheneveau and
charge decreases is related to the radiation intensity. In Albert Laborde. The key feature of the latter instrument,
the early days, this decrease in charge was usually designed according to the recommendations of Pierre
measured with an electroscope. The second and more Curie, was that it employed interchangeable ionization
familiar approach is to measure the current from the chambers (Cheneveau and Laborde 1909). A very similar
chamber while maintaining a constant potential between electroscope developed by Samuel Lind is shown in Fig.
the electrodes. This was often done, at least during the 5. Lind had worked at the Curies’ laboratory in 1910, and
first half of the twentieth century, using a quadrant it is probable that while he was there he became familiar
electrometer. with the Cheneveau and Laborde electroscope. In his
memoirs (1972), Lind described how he never managed
to master the use of the piezoelectric electrometer in-
Electroscopes vented by Pierre Curie, the laboratory’s instrument of
The sensing element of an electroscope consists of choice for quantifying radioactive samples. Perhaps he
one or two light moveable leaves (e.g., gold, aluminum) felt more comfortable using the electroscope, and this
or fibers (e.g., quartz, carbon) that are given a static might have prompted him to develop his own version
charge. If a single leaf or fiber is used, the charge causes when he returned to the U.S.
it to be repelled by a fixed rod that is also charged. If two Prior to the development of the first “modern”
leaves or fibers are used, the charge causes them to repel survey meters in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, you
each other. During the measurement, the ions produced used whatever was available when looking for lost
in the air of the ion chamber are collected by the sources, e.g., a hand-held fluorescent screen, 16 mm film
electroscope’s sensing element. This reduces the latter’s unrolled down a sewer line. Although electroscopes are
charge and causes it to move back to its original resting not well suited to this type of work, they were used. In
position. The movement of the leaves or fibers might be
observed with or without a microscope. In the former
case, a scale is incorporated into the microscope optics.
In the latter case, a scale might be positioned behind or in
front of the leaf. The time required for the leaf or leaves
to move a certain number of divisions across the scale
gives a relative measure of the intensity of the radiation.
The invention of the electroscope can be, and is,
attributable to a number of individuals. Sometimes it is
credited to the sixteenth century physician/scientist Wil-
liam Gilbert, even though Gilbert’s “electroscope,” a
magnetic needle on a pivot, was more akin to a compass.
Others attribute the invention to John Canton whose
electroscope consisted of two pith balls suspended at the
end of linen thread. Nevertheless, it is probably fair to
say that Tiberius Cavallo and Abraham Bennet were
most responsible for developing what we normally imag-
ine an electroscope to be. In 1770, Cavallo suspended
Canton’s pith balls inside a glass jar and attached metal
strips to the inside of the jar to protect the device from the
accumulation of charge on the glass. In 1787, Bennet
Fig. 5. Lind electroscope (ca. 1920 –1930) with two interchange-
replaced the pith balls and thread with strips of gold leaf able chambers. The electroscope is mounted on a flow-through ion
attached to a brass rod that extended from the top of the chamber used for radon measurements. The chamber to the right
jar. with the open door would be used for measuring solid samples.
118 Health Physics August 2004, Volume 87, Number 2
fact, Robert Taft, author of that cult classic “Radium Lost served as a measure of the ion chamber’s current. Lord
and Found,” published a description of a “simple radium Kelvin, inventor of the quadrant electrometer, is said to
detector” that consisted of an electroscope housed inside have conceived the idea of using the mirror while
a wooden box, an instrument that had an uncanny watching a beam of light being reflected off a monocle
resemblance to a survey meter (1934). dangling from a ribbon around his neck.
A problem with early electroscopes was that their The Curies preferred to use a piezoelectrometer, a
relatively large electrical capacitance resulted in a poor somewhat complicated version of a quadrant electrome-
sensitivity. This changed with the development of what ter developed by Pierre Curie. Operating in what is
became known as the Lauritsen quartz fiber electroscope. known as the “null mode,” they prevented a deflection of
Invented in 1937 by Charles and Thomas Lauritsen at the the electrometer vane by counterbalancing the collected
California Institute of Technology, its low capacity charge from the ion chamber with the charge created by
provided great sensitivity and portability. A commercial stressing a piezoelectric crystal. Since this involved the
version of the Lauritsen electroscope produced by a addition of weights to a pan suspended from the crystal,
former technician at CalTech, Fred Henson, proved so the measurements were expressed in units of weight.
reliable that it continued to be used in some laboratories Timing the positioning of the weights on the pan was
well into the 1970’s. tricky, a skill that more than one collaborating scientist
Electroscopes are still used to measure radiation, (e.g., Sam Lind) never mastered.
and the design of the direct reading pocket dosimeter, The Dolezalek electrometer might have been beau-
which is actually an electroscope, has hardly changed in tiful to look at, but it was difficult to set up and
the 70⫹ years since it was developed by Charles Laurit- susceptible to static electricity and vibrations. Ulti-
sen (Fig. 6). The sensitive element is a horseshoe-shaped mately, it would be replaced by easier to use and less
fiber that can be seen to move across a scale when expensive devices such as the Wulf string electrometer
viewed through a lens at one end of the dosimeter. (Wulf 1914) and the Lindemann torsion electrometer
Although light usually enters through a window on the (1924). With these types of instruments, the movement
opposite end of the dosimeter from the lens, a dosimeter of a fine fiber across a scale was monitored using a
developed by Frank Shonka for use at Argonne National microscope.
Laboratory allows the light to enter through an annular Although they represented an improvement over the
window on the side of the barrel. quadrant electrometer, the Wulf and Lindemann elec-
trometers were still mechanical devices and subject to the
Electrometers vagaries of operation that one might expect (Fig. 7).
The standard role of an electrometer in radiation What was needed was a purely electrical method for
measurements has been to measure the extremely small measuring current, and it had been known since the
currents produced by an ion chamber—if the currents 1920’s that vacuum tubes offered one possible means to
were sufficiently large, a galvanometer could substitute do so. By running the ion chamber current through a high
for the electrometer. In the early 1900’s the Dolezalek resistance to the grid of a vacuum tube, the current of the
quadrant electrometer, invented at more or less the same tube’s plate circuit would vary in a fashion that could be
time that Roentgen discovered x rays, was the instrument measured by a microammeter. The vacuum tubes devel-
of choice. It employed a butterfly-shaped vane suspended oped for this purpose (known as electrometer tubes) used
inside four brass quadrants. As the collected charge from low electrode voltages and high vacuums, and they
the ion chamber changed the electrical balance between possessed low leakage grid currents. Unfortunately, it
the quadrants and the vane, the latter rotated. A beam of was not easy to design a circuit that could compensate for
light was reflected off a mirror attached to the vane’s the voltage drifts and spontaneous fluctuations in the
suspension wire, and as the vane rotated, the reflected emissions of the tubes’ filaments. As a result, it took
beam moved across a scale, often positioned one meter several decades for circuits using electrometer tubes to
away. The time it took the reflected beam of light to completely replace mechanical electrometers. The lon-
move across a specific number of divisions on the scale gevity of the latter instruments is indicated by the fact
that throughout the 1950’s and probably into the 1960’s,
beta and gamma emitting sources leaving the U.S.
National Bureau of Standards were measured with ion
chambers coupled to Lindemann electrometers (Mann
Fig. 6. Pocket dosimeter built by Charlie Lauritsen and given to
and Seliger 1958).
Robley Evans (1932). The unitless scale reads 0 –50. Almost That the typical electrometer tube circuit operated in
certainly the world’s oldest pocket dosimeter. a DC mode meant that the instrument’s response was
A history of radiation detection instrumentation ● P. W. FRAME 119
PROPORTIONAL COUNTERS
Thomson and Rutherford’s development of the ion-
ization chamber was crucial to the quantitative measure-
ments of x-rays, but the study of radioactive decay called
out for a method to count individual particles. The
solution came with the development of the proportional
counter. In 1901, John Townsend, an old school chum of
Ernest Rutherford’s, observed that a significant increase
in an ion chamber’s current could be produced at reduced
gas pressures if the high voltage was increased well
beyond that at which the saturation current had been
reached. Townsend’s explanation was that the increased
velocity of the electrons traveling to the collecting
electrode permitted them to ionize the air molecules. It
was this additional ionization that produced pulses large
enough to be counted.
Rutherford and Hans Geiger (1908) applied
Townsend’s observation in the construction of the first
counting tube: a hollow brass cylinder (25 cm long and
1.77 cm in diameter) that was sealed at each end with an
ebonite stopper and evacuated to a pressure of 20 –50
mm of mercury. A thin wire (ca. 0.45 mm in diameter) Haxel and Fritz Houtermans in 1948. While these sys-
running along the central axis of the cylinder served as tems usually operated in the proportional mode, they
the collecting electrode. The entrance window was a thin were also capable of functioning as GMs (Fig. 9).
mica sheet covering the end of a glass tube (1.5 mm inner In modern times the most celebrated application of
diameter) that penetrated one of the stoppers. When an proportional counters has been the construction of imag-
alpha particle entered the detector, the resulting pulse ing systems that can pinpoint the location of radiation
was sufficiently large to produce a visible “kick” of the interactions over large detector areas. The multiwire
needle of a quadrant electrometer. Initially the system’s proportional counters that made this possible were in-
response was so sluggish that it couldn’t keep up with vented by George Charpak et al. (1968), work for which
more than five counts per minute, but later on Rutherford he received the Nobel Prize. A multiwire proportional
and Geiger discovered that by using photography to counter consists of a series of wire anodes sandwiched
record the movement of the fiber of a string electrometer,
between large two cathodes plates which might or might
the system could handle over 1,000 counts per minute
not be segmented. By analyzing the intensity of the
(1912).
signals from the various anodes and/or cathodes seg-
The first major advance in the design of proportional
ments, the precise location of ionizing events can be
counters can be attributed to Hans Geiger and Otto
Klemperer (1928), and in recognition these detectors determined. These detectors proved particularly useful
were sometimes referred to as Geiger-Klemperer for imaging the particles produced in high energy accel-
counters (Korff 1950). Ironically, this advance involved erators.
the modification of a Geiger (“point”) counter rather than
an improvement on Rutherford and Geiger’s original
proportional counter. What Geiger and Klemperer did
was place a small sphere at the end of a point counter’s
central electrode and reverse the tube’s polarity so that
the central electrode served as the anode (these changes
would also be incorporated into the design of Geiger
Muller detectors). At low voltages their detector only
responded to alphas, but above a “critical voltage” it
responded to both alpha and beta particles. This is the
true essence of the proportional counter: the ability to
operate in the pulse mode and distinguish the signals
from different types of radiation (e.g., alpha and beta
particles). Another notable characteristic of the propor-
tional counter is that the avalanches associated with a
given pulse occur over a limited region of the anode. As
a result, the detector’s dead time is 10 to 100 times
shorter than that of a GM detector (Korff 1950).
No discussion of proportional counters would be
complete without acknowledging the contributions of
John Simpson at the University of Chicago. Among other
things, he built the first gas flow proportional counter
capable of resolving alpha pulses in the presence of high
beta count rates, he was the first to operate proportional
counters using an argon-methane gas mixture, and he
developed the first workable air proportional counter
(Simpson 1945, 1947, 1948).
One of the most important methods for the primary
standardization of radioactive samples has been the use
of a four pi counter in which a thin source is sandwiched
between two identical windowless gas flow detectors
(Mann and Seliger 1958). Although John Simpson
(1944) was the first to suggest this approach, the first true Fig. 9. Very early four pi gas flow proportional counter from
four pi detector is considered to be that described by Otto Hanford (ca. 1950).
A history of radiation detection instrumentation ● P. W. FRAME 121
turned off and light 2 came on. With the third count, light
1 would come back on while light 2 stayed on. You’ve
got the idea—the total count was the sum of the numbers
of the lights that were on at a given time. At the count of
63, all the lights would be on. With count 64, all the
lights went off and the mechanical register turned to
Fig. 10. Hand-built GM tube (1940’s). The wall of the tube is glass indicate a “1.” Since calculating the count when the
and a cylindrical copper tube serves as the cathode. Note that the mechanical register had turned over several times re-
ends of the tube have been coated with wax to reduce leakage quired multiplication as well as addition, the good folks
currents.
who put together the first edition of the Radiological
Health Handbook included multiplication tables for
(Strong 1938) and “Practical Aspects of Radioactivity scales of 64 and 256.
Measurements” in the June 1951 issue of Nucleonics. Unfortunately, the mechanical registers of the
1930’s weren’t designed to work with vacuum tube
circuits and they would occasionally “act up.” Plagued
COUNTING THE COUNTS by this problem, Robley Evans became preoccupied with
The first method for recording a count was to finding an alternative method for registering counts. The
observe the scintillations in a spinthariscope or the answer came to him one evening in 1936 while playing
deflections of an electrometer fiber and write the number table tennis in the basement of his home. Perhaps the
down on a piece of paper. Aside from the potential random clicks of the ball striking the table stimulated his
tedium, this approach was susceptible to error, especially thought processes, perhaps not, but before the night was
at high count rates, and various attempts were made to over Evans had designed the circuitry for the first
automate the process. For example, the scintillations practical count rate meter. The very next day, he rushed
could be marked on a moving paper strip, or the back to his laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of
deflections of the electrometer fiber could be photo- Technology and built a working unit of what he would
graphed with a 16 mm movie camera. call a “speedometer”(Gingrich et al. 1936; Evans 1978†).
Without doubt, the modern era of counting began in Although Evan’s rate meter couldn’t always serve as
1932 with the introduction by Wynn-Williams of the first a suitable substitute for a binary scaler, it was the only
binary (scale of two) counter. In the 1920’s, vacuum tube real alternative until 1946. That was the year that Victor
circuits had been used to drive mechanical registers, but Regener’s scale of ten (decade) counting circuit appeared
the latter were so slow that these circuits were pretty on the scene (Regener 1946). The decade scaler em-
much limited to cosmic ray investigations where the ployed several vertical columns of lights with each
counts came few and far between. What the Wynn- column containing ten lights numbered 0 through 9
Williams circuit provided was a way to reduce high count (bottom to top). The count was indicated by noting which
rates to one that the mechanical register could handle. A numbers were lit up in each column. No addition, no
typical binary scaler would display the count on five to multiplication. What a concept! Within a couple of years,
eight lights and, if required, a mechanical register. As an several commercial versions were being produced. That
example (see Fig. 11), there might be six lights numbered it took until 1960 or so for decade scalers to supplant
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32—such a scaler would be known as binary scalers was primarily due to the fact that the early
a “scale of 64” unit. With no counts registered, all the decade scalers were not as stable as the binary scalers or
lights would be off. The first count would turn on light as capable of operating at high count rates (Newell
number 1. When the second count was registered, light 1 1952).
One novel approach worth mentioning was for the
instrument to indicate the count by the resting position of
a needle that had moved across the meter scale during a
timed count. This was the method used in Precision
Radiation Instruments’ “Royal Scintillator,” probably the
top-of-the-line portable gamma scintillator of the 1950’s.
In my mind nothing can touch the visual appeal of
the “glow transfer” (also known as Dekatron) tubes that
†
Origin of standards for internal emitters. Unpublished. Sympo-
sium of the Bluegrass and Hoosier Chapters of the Health Physics
Fig. 11. Display for a scale of 64 binary scaler (late 1940’s). Society; September 8 –10, 1978.
A history of radiation detection instrumentation ● P. W. FRAME 123
SCINTILLATION COUNTERS
Alpha scintillation detectors: ZnS
The scintillation method for counting the alpha
particles emitted in radioactive decay was discovered in
1903 by William Crookes, and independently by Julius
Elster and Hans Geitel. Crookes’ discovery occurred
while he was observing the phosphorescent glow of a
zinc sulphide (ZnS) screen exposed to 226Ra. In what
turned out to be a stroke of luck, he accidentally spilt
some of the radium onto the screen. Hoping to find the
tiny bits of lost material, Crookes put the ZnS under a
microscope, and what he saw astonished him. Instead of
the expected uniform glow, Crookes saw individual
flashes of light. This happy event led him to construct the
first radiation counter, a device he called the spinthari-
Fig. 16. Crookes spinthariscope from Robert Millikan’s laboratory
scope. It consisted of a short brass tube with a zinc (ca. 1910 –1920). This version of the spinthariscope would have
sulphide screen at one end and a magnifying lens at the been used for demonstration purposes, not quantitative measure-
other. A 226Ra source positioned a few mm above the ZnS ments.
A history of radiation detection instrumentation ● P. W. FRAME 125
and the fact that the dark-adapted eye is quite sensitive to of new scintillating materials— by the end of the 1940’s,
the wavelength of the light emitted by ZnS. the growing list of scintillators included naphthalene,
The first electronic scintillation counter was built by anthracene, phenanthrene, stilbene, NaI, KI, CaF, flu-
Samuel Curran and W. Baker during World War II as oranthene, fluorine, CaWO4 (scheelite), and CdWO4, to
part of the Manhattan Project activities at Berkeley, name a few (Moon 1948; Jordan and Bell 1949).
California. It used an RCA Type 1P21 photomultiplier
tube to register the scintillations produced by alpha Gamma scintillation: Napthalene and NaI
particles striking a silver activated ZnS screen. When The story of organic scintillators begins in war-
declassified, their 1944 report was published as the ravaged Berlin in late 1945. Hartmut Kallman had
Manhattan District document, MDDC 1296 (Curran and returned there after several years’ absence only to find
Baker 1948). Since this work took so long to appear in that his old university laboratory had been stripped of its
the open literature, the credit for the first electronic alpha equipment by the Russian army. Although discouraged,
scintillation detector is sometimes attributed to Marietta Kallman was determined to continue his research using
Blau and B. Dreyfus (1945) or John Coltman and Hugh whatever materials and equipment he could find. Lead
Marshall (1947). Blau and Dreyfus used the PMT current paint scraped from the laboratory walls would serve as
as a measure of the intensity of the alpha radiation, while his radioactive source, and for a detector he decided to
Coltman and Marshall registered the individual pulses. couple photographic film to some type of scintillator. To
For what it’s worth, Ruby Sherr (1947) was the first to fabricate the latter, he rounded up one of the few things
employ a PMT in an alpha survey meter. readily available in the bombed out city: moth balls.
Melted down, they could be recast as blocks of naphtha-
Photomultiplier tubes and their first applications in lene. The system worked, but when Kallman showed it to
radiation measurements an official from the American Military Government, the
Before there were photomultiplier tubes, there were visitor found it ludicrous. Kallman suggested that instead
electron multiplier tubes (Bay 1938). Since the latter of laughing, the American should help by supplying him
didn’t possess a photocathode, they weren’t used to with the only type of currency worth anything in Berlin’s
convert scintillations into electronic pulses. Instead, they thriving black market: cigarettes. Much to Kallman’s
were used to perform direct counts of particulate radia- astonishment and delight, 10,000 cigarettes showed up
tion. In a typical application, a beam of electrons or beta on his desk the very next day. In this way, Hartmut
particles would be directed onto the first dynode of the Kallman assembled the world’s first organic scintillator:
tube. The radiation might, or might not, have to pass a naphthalene crystal made from mothballs that was
through some sort of window (Allen 1947, 1948). Mul- coupled to a PMT purchased with Lucky Strike cigarettes
tiplier tubes had one significant advantage over the (Deutsch 1948; Hine 1977). Other organic scintillators
Geiger Mueller counter: a short resolving time. were quick to make their appearance, e.g., the following
The first photomultiplier tube to see the light of day year P.R. Bell (1948) and Koski and Thomas (1949)
was described by Larson and Salinger in 1940 as “a showed that even more efficient detectors could be
combination of a vacuum type photoelectric cell and an produced using anthracene and stilbene crystals, respec-
electronic multiplier.” While they proposed several po- tively.
tential applications for their invention (e.g., movie pro- Nevertheless, it was an inorganic scintillator that
jection systems), none of their suggestions involved proved to have the brightest future. In 1948, Robert
radiation measurements. It would seem that the first use Hofstadter reported extremely intense scintillations from
of a photomultiplier tube in the radiological sciences was sodium iodide crystals to which he had added “a pinch of
in an exposure meter described by Russell Morgan (1942) at thallium.” Given this material’s tremendous potential for
a meeting of the Chicago Roentgen Society in April of gamma spectroscopy, Hofstadter wasn’t about to relin-
1941. More specifically, the meter employed an RCA Type quish its exploitation to others. Within two years, he had
929 photomultiplier tube coated with crystals of calcium not only published gamma spectra for a wide variety of
tungstate. The current, as measured by a microammeter, radionuclides, he had even described the presence in
served as a measure of the intensity of an x-ray beam. these spectra of what we now refer to as escape,
The impact of the photomultiplier tube cannot be annihilation and backscatter peaks (Hofstadter and
overstated. Without it, any number of analytical methods McIntrye 1950).
as we now know them would have been impossible, e.g.,
gamma scintillation spectroscopy, liquid scintillation Liquid scintillation counters
counting, thermoluminescent dosimetry. The invention The first to produce detectors by dissolving an
of the PMT also spurred the development of a whole host organic scintillator in a liquid were Hartmut Kallmann
126 Health Physics August 2004, Volume 87, Number 2
and Milton Furst at New York University (1950), and company managed to introduce a plastic scintillator into
George Reynolds and his colleagues at Princeton (Reyn- their product line that very year: a polystyrene matrix
olds 1950; Reynold et al. 1950). Kallman and Furst’s (still used today) incorporating a terphenyl scintillator.
detector consisted of anthracene dissolved in toluene. At first, plastic scintillators were viewed as an alternative
Reynolds and his coworkers employed various combina- to external liquid scintillation counters for gamma ray
tions of scintillators and solvents, but they obtained their work. The detection efficiencies of plastic and liquid
best results with terphenyl dissolved in benzene or scintillators were not as high as that of sodium iodide, but
xylene. Both groups used coincidence counting to reduce these detectors had shorter decay times and could be
the noise produced by the thermionic emissions from fabricated in much larger sizes. Although it was easier to
their PMT’s photocathodes, a technique Morton and produce very large detectors with liquid scintillators than
Robinson had employed earlier (1949) with solid scintil- with plastic scintillators, the latter had several advan-
lation counters. tages. They could be produced in a wider range of
Originally, liquid scintillators, just like solid scintil- shapes, and they didn’t require a container that would
lators, were designed for external counting applications. attenuate low energy photons and particulate radiation.
It was Maurice Raben from Tufts College Medical Since plastic scintillators have a low atomic number,
School and Nicholaas Bloembergen from Harvard Uni- gamma rays interact almost exclusively via Compton
versity (1951) who proposed the idea of dissolving the scattering. This means that their spectra lack full energy
sample in the scintillator: “a simple and geometrically photopeaks, something that rules out plastic scintillators
ideal counting system might be obtained by dissolving as a serious tool for gamma spectroscopy. Even so, it was
the material to be counted directly in liquid. This method recognized early on that the Compton pulse height
would facilitate particularly the counting of soluble distribution could provide some degree of information
compounds labeled with a weak beta emitter, such as about energy (Brownell et al. 1958).
C-14.”
The commercialization of liquid scintillation count- SEMICONDUCTOR DETECTORS
ing had its origins in the early 1950’s at the University of
Chicago where James Arnold had constructed his own The ancestors of semiconductor detectors were
liquid scintillation counter as a tool for carbon dating. In known as “crystal detectors,” solid detectors whose
1952, Lyle Packard, a colleague of Arnold, left the conductivity varied with the intensity of the radiation
university to run his own company, and he was imme- (Jaffe 1932; Van Heerden 1945). For the most part,
diately asked to build a liquid scintillation counter by however, these were crude devices of questionable util-
George Leroy of the Argonne Cancer Research hospital. ity. The first “modern” semiconductor detector is gener-
Packard couldn’t ask for a better customer—Leroy had ally considered to have been built at Bell Laboratories by
access to nearly unlimited Atomic Energy Commission Kenneth McKay (1951). It was a reverse biased p-n
funding. Since the counter was to be used for double junction detector used to detect alpha particles. At the
labeling experiments with 3H and 14C, Packard named it time, McKay’s report did not seem to be a particularly
the Tri-Carb and assigned it the model number 314 auspicious event. Among other things, the detector was
(Rheinberger 1999). extremely small, and when it came to alpha detection
The major market for LSC units was the medical there were far better alternatives, e.g., proportional
bioresearch community where it was not unusual to perform counters and ZnS scintillators.
runs with dozens or hundreds of samples. With the original By 1960, improvements in their quality and size, as
counting systems this was an onerous task. First, each well as the development of practical pulse height analysis
sample container was optically coupled to the PMTs by systems, revealed the true promise of semiconductors.
immersing it in oil. Next, the doors to the shield and freezer This promise would be particularly evident at the Sev-
were closed—the early counters were housed inside com- enth Scintillation Counter Symposium held in 1960 in
mercial freezers to reduce thermionic noise. Finally, the Washington D.C. (Nucleonics 1960), but it was only
high voltage was turned on and the count initiated. One can after being pressured that the organizers allowed the
only imagine the joy that accompanied the introduction in presentation of any papers dealing with semiconductors.
1957 of Packard’s automatic 100 sample changer. After all, this was a scintillation counter symposium.
Ironically, the controversy might have had a salutary
Plastic scintillators effect: according to one participant (McKenzie 1979), a
The earliest readily available reference to plastic competition developed between the different laboratories
scintillators is in the August 1950 issue of the Physical to report the best resolution. It was here that Stephen
Review (Schorr and Torney). Amazingly, the Tracerlab Friedland et al. (1960) of Hughes Aircraft reported the
A history of radiation detection instrumentation ● P. W. FRAME 127
production of diffused junction silicon detectors for phenomenon known as radiophotoluminescence (RPL),
alpha particle spectroscopy, and James McKenzie from was reported in 1912 by E. Goldstein. Nevertheless, it
Chalk River described detectors with thick enough de- wasn’t until 1950 that James Schulman at the U.S. Naval
pletion layers to be suitable for the pulse height analyses Research Laboratory in Washington would propose that
of electrons with energies up to several hundred keV. RPL could be exploited in radiation dosimetry (Schul-
Nevertheless, it was an instrument described in 1963 man 1950; Schulman et al. 1951).
by Alister Tavendale and George Ewan of Chalk River Schulman’s dosimeters consisted of blocks or rods
Laboratories that truly revolutionized the way we do of silver-activated aluminophosphate glass. During an
things: the first lithium-drifted germanium detector ca- exposure of the glass to radiation, some of the absorbed
pable of truly high resolution gamma spectroscopy, a energy promotes electrons to the conduction band, and
detector with a resolution more than an order of magni- these electrons migrate to the silver activation sites. The
tude better than that possible with NaI detectors. Barely resulting reduction of the silver atoms at these sites
a year later, it would be said that Ge(Li) detectors had produces a new absorption band around 20 nm, and when
“replaced NaI(Tl) scintillation crystals for almost every the glass is subsequently exposed to light of this wave-
serious investigation in gamma ray spectroscopy” length, the electrons at the activation sites are excited. As
(Shirley 1965). Who among us has not fantasized about the electrons deexcite, the glass exhibits an orange
the thrill of experiencing their first high-resolution spec- luminescence, and the intensity of this luminescence is
trum after a decade of working with NaIs? linearly related to dose. One important feature of radio-
The fly in the ointment during the 1960’s was the photoluminescence is that the color centers are not
difficulty in obtaining high quality germanium and silicon. destroyed by this procedure.
For reasons that had yet to be determined, there was only a The first RPL dosimeter to actually be deployed was
50 –50 chance that a germanium or silicon ingot would be the U.S. Navy’s DT-60/PD unit. It consisted of a square
good enough to fabricate into a detector (Davis 1967). block of RPL glass inside a circular black plastic holder
Eventually, with the financial assistance of the Atomic that would be hung from the neck or pinned to the
Energy Commission, methods were developed that yielded clothing (Schulman et al. 1953, 1967). The dosimeter’s
reliable predictions about the quality of the material, and by over-response at low energies was corrected for with a
the end of the decade the problem had been solved. Even as circular lead filter that had a small hole in the center.
this was being accomplished, the nuclear industry was Without the hole, the filter would eliminate any response
looking towards the next generation of detectors, and efforts to the lowest photon energies. The DT-60 was not used
began at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to produce ger- for routine dosimetry since the lowest dose that could be
manium with impurity levels below 1010 cm⫺3, pure enough measured was 10 R. Hence, its designation as a “casu-
that lithium drifting would no longer be required. The alty” dosimeter. Similar RPL dosimeters were used by
payoff came a decade or so later when the first high purity the military in other countries, e.g., France, Japan,
germanium (HPGe) detectors became commercially avail- Austria (Becker 1968).
able. During the 1960’s, improvements made to the glass
The superb resolution of a germanium detector is due by the Toshiba Corporation and the concurrent improve-
to the extremely large number of charge carriers associated ments in the design of the readers increased the sensitiv-
with its pulses, and this large number of charge carriers ity of RPL dosimeters to the point that they became
results from germanium’s narrow band gap (⬍ 1 eV). suitable for routine health physics (Yokota and Nakajima
Unfortunately, the latter characteristic creates a significant 1967; Becker 1968). RPL dosimeters had numerous
potential for thermally generated noise that can only be advantages: there was little to no variability from one
reduced by operating the detector at low temperatures. batch to another, they were inexpensive and rugged, they
Room temperature detectors can be produced using semi- could be reread with no loss of signal, and their accuracy
conductor materials (e.g., CdTe, CZT) with larger band was as good as, or better than, that of film (Becker 1966).
gaps than that of germanium, but this inevitably involves a Despite this, the use of film was firmly entrenched, and
sacrifice of resolution, and at least for the time being, a the potential of RPL dosimetry went largely unrealized
small size that limits efficiency at high energies. (Fig. 17).
Among the key advantages of DIS dosimeters are Wilson probably expected, the x rays increased the
their flat energy response, non-destructive readout, and number of water droplets by producing the condensation
small size. nuclei around which these droplets could form (Wilson
1896). Although the first major application for the cloud
ELECTRETS chamber was to measure the charge on the ions that
served as condensation nuclei, the chamber’s biggest role
While many of us are inclined to think of the electret would turn out to be the visualization of the tracks of
as a radiation detector of recent vintage, it is actually charged particles traveling through the gas.
another member of the detector baby boom generation of In subsequent decades, and the 1930’s in particular,
the 1940’s and 1950’s. The idea of measuring the the cloud chamber proved to be an invaluable tool for
intensity of radiation via a decrease in the electric charge investigating cosmic rays. Indeed, it could be said that
on an insulating material (e.g., fluorothene), an idea “Wilson’s expansion chamber is to the atomic physicist
beautiful in its simplicity, was patented by Harry Marvin what the telescope is to the astronomer” (Lewis 1979). In
of the General Electric Company in 1954. In principle, use, a typical experimental setup consisted of the cloud
the device is a condenser ion chamber—the ions gener- chamber, a camera, and a GM tube. The latter was used
ated by an exposure to radiation in a volume of encap- to detect the passage of a cosmic ray, trigger the
sulated air are attracted to the electret thereby reducing expansion of the chamber, and activate the camera to
the stored charge. The difference in the charges before record the tracks. Perhaps no one profited more from the
and after deployment serves as the measure of the cloud chamber than Carl Anderson at the California
radiation intensity. One of Marvin’s proposed applica- Institute of Technology. With it, he discovered a number
tions was to employ an electret in a dosimeter fashioned of exotic particles including the positron (1933), work for
like a wrist watch as a means to determine radiation which he was awarded the Nobel Prize (Fig. 18).
exposures to the hands. Today, of course, electrets are
most widely used for measuring indoor radon and
gamma ray exposures. Bubble chambers
Ironically, it was a student of Anderson’s, Donald
Glaser (1952), who was responsible for taking the air out
CLOUD CHAMBERS, BUBBLE CHAMBERS
of the cloud chamber. Glaser had been searching for a
AND SUPERHEATED DROP DETECTORS
way to overcome an inherent limitation of cloud cham-
Cloud chambers bers: the low density of the gas. Among other things, the
It was a fond recollection of sunlight shining on tiny low density made it impractical to build a chamber large
water droplets in the clouds swirling around the summit enough to visualize the entire tracks of low LET radia-
of Scotland’s Ben Nevis that spurred the attempts in tion. Glaser’s idea, to replace the cloud chamber’s gas
1895 of Charles Wilson to investigate cloud formation
(Keller 1983). The simple apparatus that Wilson, a young
graduate student in J.J. Thompson’s Cambridge labora-
tory, constructed to duplicate Nature’s magic consisted
of an air-filled cylinder, the bottom of which was formed
by the top of a piston. Rapidly drawing down the piston
increased the chamber volume, and the resulting sudden
drop in the temperature of the saturated air led to the
formation of liquid droplets. At the time, it was well
known that airborne dust particles would serve as the
condensation nuclei around which droplets would form,
but much to Wilson’s amazement droplets formed even
in the absence of dust. This led him to propose that
electrical charges must be spontaneously forming in the
air and that these charges were acting as condensation
nuclei.
At the same time that Wilson was mimicking cloud
formation, J.J. Thompson was investigating the ioniza-
tion of gases by Roentgen’s newly discovered x rays. Fig. 18. Cloud chamber used by Carl Anderson at the California
Therefore, it was only natural that Wilson would inves- Institute of Technology (ca. 1935). The piston on this chamber is
tigate the effect of x rays on “cloudy condensation.” As made of glass so that it can be illuminated from below.
A history of radiation detection instrumentation ● P. W. FRAME 131
with a superheated liquid, was a stroke of genius said to individual droplet by the passage of a charged particle (e.g.,
have come to him while consuming beer in a tavern. In a recoil proton) exceeds a critical size, the vaporization
his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, Glaser de- becomes self perpetuating and the entire droplet evaporates
scribed early experiments in which he opened up heated to produce a visible bubble. Apfel’s initial approach was to
bottles of beer, with and without radiation sources estimate the neutron dose by measuring the total volume of
nearby, to observe any effects the radiation might have the gas. Later, Harry Ing and Chaim Birnboim (1984) at
on the degree of foaming. Chalk River developed a similar device, known as a bubble
A superheated liquid is a liquid that has been heated detector, but instead of measuring the total volume of the
to a temperature above its boiling point. It remains in a gas, Ing and Birnboim determined the dose by counting the
liquid state until something induces a phase transition to number of bubbles. This latter approach is particularly
a gas, e.g., the presence of impurities, or increasing the versatile because the bubbles can be counted in a number of
temperature above the superheat limit. ways, e.g., with a simple visual inspection, or a computer-
Glaser’s first bubble chamber employed a solution ized scanning analysis. It is even possible to employ a
of ethyl ether heated to its boiling point. When the transducer to “hear” each bubble as it is formed, just as you
moment had come to visualize charged particle tracks, might listen to the “clicks” of a Geiger counter.
the chamber volume was suddenly increased. The drop in
pressure left the liquid at a temperature above its boiling
FINAL THOUGHTS
point so that any charged particle (e.g., an electron)
traversing the liquid would produce small localized This “history” is certainly one that is rich with
regions of high temperatures (thermal spikes). The re- detail, but in truth it was far too brief to do the subject
sulting evaporation of the liquid at these points produced justice. The choice of instruments was arbitrary, and the
a trail of bubbles. Later, Luis Alvarez latched onto discussions all too often took the form of “the first [fill in
Glaser’s idea and pioneered the construction of huge the blank] was developed by [fill in the blank].” Perhaps
chambers filled with hundreds of gallons of liquefied the silver lining is that the reader has been presented with
hydrogen. These monster chambers, for a time at least, innumerable opportunities to search out missing pieces
would become the mainstay for imaging the alphabet of information and experience the joy that comes when
soup of particles produced in accelerators. that search is successful. Even if the sought-after infor-
A major problem with both cloud chambers and mation is never found, other jewels of knowledge will be.
bubble chambers is the fact that the particle tracks must That’s part of what makes the history of radiation
be recorded on photographs—analyzing photographs is protection measurements so fascinating.
not always a reliable or reproducible method for obtain-
ing data. Ultimately, the bubble chamber was replaced by Review Articles and Recommended Sources of
multiwire proportional counters and semiconductor im- General Information
aging systems. Since the output from these latter devices
● Attix FH. Luminescence dosimetry. In: Proceedings
is purely electronic, there are far more options available International Conference Luminescence Dosimetry,
for the storage, display, manipulation, and analysis of the June 21–23, 1965; 1967.
signals. In addition, proportional counters and semicon- ● Beringer R. Charged particle counters in the pre-
ductor detectors are faster than cloud and bubble cham- modern period. Nucl Instr Meth 162:15–19; 1979.
bers because they have no moving parts. ● Botter-Jensen L. Luminescence techniques and meth-
ods. Radiat Meas 27:749 –768; 1997.
● Bromley DA. Evolution and use of nuclear detectors
Superheated drop/bubble dosimeters
and systems. Nucl Instr Meth 162:1– 8; 1979.
In the early 1970’s, a concerted effort got underway to
● Brooks FD. Development of organic scintillators. Nucl
develop an alternative to NTA film (Kodak Nuclear Film Instr Meth 162:477–505; 1979.
Type A) for neutron dosimetry. The most novel device to ● Brown SC. Theory and operation of Geiger-Muller
arise from this search was developed by Robert Apfel at counters—I the discharge mechanisms. Nucleonics
Yale University (1979), the superheated drop detector. It (June):10 –22; 1948a.
consists of microscopic droplets of a superheated liquid ● Brown SC. Theory and operation of Geiger-Muller
(e.g., Freon) dispersed throughout an immiscible plastic counters—II counters for specific purposes. Nucleon-
matrix. Each of these droplets acts like a miniature bubble ics (August):50 – 64; 1948b.
● Cameron JR, Suntharalingam N, Kenney GN. Ther-
chamber except that some of the droplets are completely moluminescent dosimetry. Madison, WI: University of
vaporized, not something you would want to happen to a Wisconsin Press; 1968.
bubble chamber. This is how the process works: if the ● Curtiss LF. Measurements of radioactivity. NBS Cir-
volume of the microscopic vapor cavities produced in an cular 476:October 15; 1949.
132 Health Physics August 2004, Volume 87, Number 2
● Curtiss LF. The Geiger Muller counter. NBS Circular sensitive thermoluminescent anion-defective Al2O3:C sin-
490:January 23; 1950. gle crystal detector. Radiat Protect Dosim 32:15–29; 1990.
● Ewan GT. The solid ionization chamber. Nucl Instr Allen JS. An improved electron multiplier particle counter. Rev
Meth 162:75–92; 1979. Sci Instr 18:739 –749; 1947.
● Fulbright HW. Ionization chambers. Nucl Instr Meth Allen JS. Particle detection with multiplier tubes. Nucleonics
162:21–28; 1979. (July):34 –39; 1948.
Anderson CD. The positive electron. Phys Rev 43:491– 494;
● Heath RL, Hofstadter R, Hughes EB. Inorganic scin- 1933.
tillators—A review of techniques and applications. Andrews HL. Laboratory measuring instruments. In: Stannard
Nucl Instr Meth 162:431– 476; 1979. JN, ed. Radioactivity and health: a history. Richland, WA:
● Ing H, Noulty RA, McLean TD. Bubble detectors—A Pacific Northwest Laboratory; DOE/RL/01830-T59; 1988.
maturing technology. Radiat Meas 27:1–11; 1997. Antonov-Romanovsky VV, Keirim-Markus IF, Poroshina MS,
● Kathren RL. Instrumentation for monitoring and field Trapeznikova ZA. Dosimetry of ionizing radiation with the
use. In: Stannard JN, ed. Radioactivity and health a aid of infra-red sensitive phosphors. USAEC Report AEC-
history. Pacific Northwest Laboratory; DOE/RL/ tr-2435 pt 1:239 –250; 1956.
01830-T59; 1988. Apfel RE. The superheated drop detector. Nuc Instr Meth
● Kathren RL. Health physics instruments yesterday: 162:603– 608; 1979.
some notes on the evolution of health physics instru- Attix FH, Roesch WC. Radiation dosimetry. Vol II. 2nd ed.
ments. In: Proceedings of the 22nd Midyear Topical New York: Academic Press; 1966.
Bay Z. Electron–multiplier as an electron counting device.
Meeting on Instrumentation. McLean, VA: Health Nature 141:284; 1938.
Physics Society; 1988: 1–9. Becker K. Photographic, glass, or thermoluminescence dosim-
● Kathren RL, Ziemer PL. Health physics: A backward etry. Health Phys 12:955–964; 1966.
glance. New York: Pergamon Press; 1980. Becker K. Recent progress in radiophotoluminescence dosim-
● Korff SA. Proportional counters—I. Nucleonics June: etry. Health Phys 14:17–32; 1968.
5–36; 1950a. Becquerel H. Sur quelques propietes nouvelles des radiations
● Korff SA. Proportional counters—II. Nucleonics No- invisibles emises par divers corps phosphorescents. C R
vember:46 –52; 1950b. Acad Sci (Paris): 559 –564; 1896.
● Korff SA. Proportional counters—III. Nucleonics Jan- Becquerel H. Recherche sur une propriete nouvelle de la
uary:38 – 43; 1951. matiere: activite radiante et spontanee ou radioactivite de la
● Krebs AT. Early history of the scintillation counter. matiere. Paris: Didot; 1903.
Science 122:17–18; 1955. Bell PR. The use of anthracene as a scintillation counter. Phys
Rev 73:1405–1406; 1948.
● Larsen NA. Dosimetry based on thermally and opti- Benoist L. Definition experimentale des diverse sortes de
cally stimulated luminescence. Roskilde, Denmark: rayons X par le radiochrometre. C R Acad Sci (Paris)
Riso National Laboratory; Riso-R-1090(EN); January 134:225–227; 1902.
1999. Dissertation. Blau M, Dreyfus B. The multiplier photo-tube in radioactive
● Lipetz LE. The x-ray and radium phosphenes. Int J measurements. Rev Sci Inst 16:245–248; 1945.
Ophthal 39:577–598; 1955. Bordier L. Radiometric methods. Arch Rontg Ray 11:4 –13;
● Mann WB, Seliger HH. Preparation, maintenance, and 1906.
application of standards of radioactivity. NBS Circular Borgman II. La thermoluminescence provoquee par les rayons
594; 1958. de M. Roentgen et les rayons de M. Becquerel. Comptes
● Pringle RW. The scintillation counter. Nature 166(July Rendus 124:895– 896; 1897.
1):11–14; 1950. Brandes GSB. Preuss Akad Wiss 1:547; 1896.
● Quimby EH. The history of dosimetry in roentgen Brassard C. Liquid ionization detectors. Nucl Instrum Methods
162:29 – 47; 1979.
therapy. Am J Roentg Rad Ther 54:688 –703; 1945.
Brecher R, Brecher E. The rays—a history of radiology in the
● Romer A. The restless atom. Garden City: Anchor United States and Canada. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins
Books; 1960. Co; 1969.
● Shutt RP. Cloud chamber: expansion and diffusion. Brownell GL, Ellet WH, LeVine HD. Measuring gamma ray
Nucl Instr Meth 162:379 –388; 1979. spectra with large plastic scintillators. Nucleonics (Decem-
● Various authors. Practical aspects of radioactivity ber):68 –70; 1958.
instruments. Supplement to June issue of Nucleonics: Charpak G, Bouclier R, Bressani T, Favier J, Zupancic C. The
S-1–S-32; 1951. use of multiwire proportional counters to select and localize
● Wyckoff HO, Attix FH. Design of free-air ionization charged particles. Nucl Instrum Meth 62:202–226; 1968.
chambers. National Bureau of Standards Handbook Cheneveau C, Laborde A. Appareils pour la mesure de la
64; 1957. radioactivite, d’apres la methode electroscopique. J de Phys
4e serie, tome VIII: 161–174; 1909.
Coltman JW, Marshall FH. Photomultiplier radiation detector.
REFERENCES Nucleonics (November):58 – 64; 1947.
Crookes W. The emanations of radium. Proc R Soc Lond
Adamczewski I. Ionization chambers with liquid and their 71:405– 408; 1903.
practical application. In: Selected topics in radiation dosim- Curie P, Laborde A. Sur la radioactivite des gaz qui se
etry. Vienna; IAEA; 191–201; 1961. degagent de l’eau des sources thermals. Comp Rend Acad D
Akselrod MS, Kortov VS, Kravetsky DJ, Gotlib VI. Highly Sc Par 138:1150; 1904.
A history of radiation detection instrumentation ● P. W. FRAME 133
Curran SC, Baker WR. A photoelectric alpha-particle detector. Hofstadter R. Alkali halide scintillation counters. Phys Rev
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Report MDDC 1296; 74:100 –101; 1948.
1944. Hofstadter R, McIntrye JA. Gamma-ray spectroscopy with
Curran SC, Baker WR. Photoelectric alpha-particle detector. crystals of NaI (Tl). Nucleonics (September):32–37; 1950.
Rev Sci Instr 19:116; 1948. Holzknecht G. Ueber das chromoradiometer. Fortschr A d Geb
Daniels F, Boyd CA, Saunders DF. Thermoluminescence as a D Rontgenstrahlen. 6:102; 1902–1903 (in German).
research tool. Science 117:343–349; 1953. Horowitz YS. Thermoluminescence and thermoluminescent
Davidson N, Larsh AE. Conductivity pulses induced in insu- dosimetry. Vol I. Boca Raton, FL; CRC Press Inc; 1984.
lating liquids by ionizing radiations. Phys Rev 77:706 –711; Hudson JC. Roentgen-ray dosimetry. In: Glaser O, ed. The
1950. science of radiology. Springfield: Charles C Thomas; 1932:
Davis HL. The day the germanium turned bad. Nucleonics 120 –138.
(February):23–24; 1967. Hutchinson GW. Ionization in liquid and solid argon. Nature
Deutsch M. Naphthalene counters for beta and gamma rays. 162:610 – 611; 1948.
Nucleonics (March):58 –59; 1948. Ing H, Birnboim HC. A bubble-damage polymer detector for
Dorn E. Heating effects of Roentgen rays. Ann Phys Chem neutrons. Nucl Tracks Radiat Meas 8:285–288; 1984.
63:160 –176; 1897. Jaffe G. Zur theorie der ionisation in kolonnen. Ann d Phys
Failla G. Criteria for the design of a standard ionization 42:303–344; 1913.
chamber. Am J Roent Rad Ther 21:47– 63; 1929. Jaffe G. Effect of alpha rays on the passage of electricity
Fenton KB. Geiger Muller counters before and after 1946. In: through crystals. Phys Z 33:393–399; 1932.
ANARE Research Notes 102. 50 years of cosmic ray Jordan WH, Bell PR. Scintillation counters. Nucleonics (Oc-
research in Tasmania. Twelfth National Congress of the tober):30 – 41; 1949.
Australian Institute of Physics; 2000: 61– 80. Kahilainen J. The direct ion storage dosemeter. Radiat Protect
Figular LG. Development of a low cost gamma radiation Dosim 66:459 – 462; 1996.
survey meter. Orange, NJ: Thomas A. Edison Research Kallman H, Furst M. Fluorescence of solutions bombarded
Laboratory; Final Report; Project No. 2134B; 1964. with high energy radiation (energy transport in liquids).
Fournier P, Fournier JA. Niepce de Saint-Victor (1805–1870), Phys Rev 79:857– 870; 1950.
M. E. Chevreul (1786 –1889) et la decouverte de la radio- Keller A. The infancy of atomic physics: Hercules in his cradle.
activite. New J Chem 14:785–790; 1990. Oxford: Clarendon Press; 1983.
Friedland SS, Mayer JW, Wiggins JS. Tiny semiconductor is Kienbock R. Uber dosimeter und das quantimetrische ver-
fast linear detector. Nucleonics (February):54 –59; 1960. fahren. Fort Rontgenstr 9:276 –295; 1905 (in German).
Frisch O. British atomic energy report. BR-49; 1944. Korff SA. Proportional counters—I. Nucleonics (June):5–36;
1950.
Fuchs AW. Evolution of Roentgen film. Am J Roent Rad Ther
Koski WS, Thomas CO. Scintillations produced by alpha
Nucl Med 75:30 – 48; 1956.
particles in a series of structurally related organic crystals.
Geiger H. A method of counting alpha and beta rays. Deutsch Phys Rev 76:308 –309; 1949.
Phys Ges 15:534 –539; 1913. Land EH. Radiation detection device. U.S. Patent No. 2,
Geiger H, Klemperer O. Mode of action of the Geiger point 687:478; 1954.
counter. Zeits Physik 49:753–760; 1928. Larson SS, Salinger H. Photo-cell multiplier tubes. Rev Sci
Geiger H, Marsden E. On a diffuse reflection of the alpha Instrum 11:226 –229; 1940.
particles. Proc R Soc 82:495–500; 1909. Lauritsen CC, Lauritsen T. A simple quartz fiber electrometer.
Geiger H, Muller W. Das elektronenzahlrohr i wirkungsweise Rev Sci Instrum 8:438 – 439; 1937.
und herstellung eines zahlrohrs. Phys Zeit 29:839 – 841; Lewis WB. Early detectors and counters. Nucl Instrum Meth-
1928a (in German). ods 162:9 –14; 1979.
Geiger H, Muller W. Elektronenzahlrohr zur messung schw- Liebson SH, Friedman H. Self-quenching halogen-filled
achster aktivitaten. Naturwissenschaften 16:617– 618; counters. Rev Sci Instrum 19:303–306; 1948.
1928b (in German). Lind SC. The memoirs of Samuel Colville Lind. J Tenn Acad
Gingrich NS, Evans RD, Edgerton HE. A direct-reading Sci 47:3– 40; 1972.
counting rate meter for random pulses. Rev Sci Instr Lindemann FA, Lindemann AF, Kerley TC. A new form of
7:450 – 456; 1936. electrometer. Phil Mag 47:577–583; 1924.
Glaser D. Some effects of ionizing radiation on the formation Locher GL. Photoelectric quantum counters for visible and
of bubbles in liquids. Phys Rev 87:665; 1952. ultraviolet light. Part I. Phys Rev 42:525–546; 1932.
Glasser O. Technical development of radiology 1906 –1956. Lucretius. On the nature of things. Bennett CE translation. New
Am J Roent Nucl Med 75:7–13; 1956. York: Walter J. Black; 1946.
Glasser O. Dr. W. C. Rontgen. Springfield: Charles C Thomas; Makower W, Geiger H. Practical radioactivity measurements.
1958. New York: Longman, Green and Co; 1912.
Grigg ERN. The trail of the invisible light. Springfield: Charles Mandeville CE, Scherb MV. Photosensitive Geiger counters:
C Thomas; 1965. their applications. Nucleonics November: 34 –38; 1950.
Hardy WB, Wilcock EG. On the oxidizing action of the rays Mann WH. A radiation balance for the microcalorimetric
from radium bromide as shown by the decomposition of comparison of four national radium standards. J Res Natl
iodoform. Proc R Soc 72:200 –204; 1903. Bur Std 52:277; 1954.
Haxel O, Houtermans FG. Gleichzeitige emission von zwei Mann WB, Seliger HH. Preparation, maintenance, and appli-
elektronen beim radioaktiven zerfall des rubidium 87. Zeit cation of standards of radioactivity. NBS Circular 594; June
Physik 124:705–13; 1948 (in German). 11; 1958.
Hine GJ. The inception of photoelectric scintillation detection Markey BG, Colyott LE, McKeever SWS. Time-resolved,
commemorated after three decades. J Nucl Med 18:867– optically stimulated luminescence from alpha-Al2O3:C.
871; 1977. Radiat Meas 24:457– 463; 1995.
134 Health Physics August 2004, Volume 87, Number 2
Marvin HB. Method and apparatus for measuring ionizing Rutherford E, McLung RK. Energy of Roentgen and Becquerel
radiations. U.S. Patent No. 2,695,363; November 23, 1954. rays, and the energy required to produce an ion in gases.
McKay KG. Electron-hole production in germanium by alpha Phil Trans Roy Soc ser A 196:25–59; 1900.
particles. Phys Rev 84:829 – 832; 1951. Sabouraud R, Noire H. Traitements des teignes tondantes par
McKenzie JM. Development of the semiconductor radiation les rayons X a l’Ecole Lailler. Presse Med 12:825– 827;
detector. Nucl Instrum Methods 162:49 –73; 1979. 1904.
Moon R. Inorganic crystals for the detection of high energy Schorr MG, Torney FL. Solid non-crystalline scintillation
particles and quanta. Phys Rev 78:1210; 1948. phosphors. Phys Rev 80:474; 1950.
Morgan RH. An exposure meter for roentgenography. Am J Schulman JH. Dosimetry of x rays and gamma rays. Washing-
Roentgenol Radium Ther 47:777–784; 1942. ton, DC: Naval Research Laboratory; Report No. 3736;
Morton GA, Robinson KW. A coincidence scintillation 1950.
counter. Nucleonics (February):25–29; 1949. Schulman JH. Solid state dosimeters for radiation measure-
Muller RA, Derenzo SE, Smadja G, Smith DB, Smits RG, ment. In: Marley WG, Morgan KZ, eds. Progress in nuclear
Zaklad H, Alvarez LW. Liquid-filled proportional counter. energy. Series XII Health Physics Vol I. New York:
Phys Rev 27:532–535; 1971. Pergamon Press; 1959: 150 –159.
National Bureau of Standards, Radiological monitoring meth- Schulman JH. Survey of luminescence dosimetry. In: Attix FH,
ods and instruments. Handbook 51; 1952. ed. Luminescence dosimetry. Proc Int Conf Lumin Dosim-
Newell RR. Binary vs. decade scalers. Nucleonics (Febru- etry, June 21–23 1965. 1967:3–33.
ary):82– 83; 1952. Schulman JH, Ginther RJ, Klick CC. Dosimetry of x-rays and
Niepce de Saint-Victor. Deuxieme memoire sur une nouvelle gamma rays by radiophotoluminescence. J Appl Phys
action de la lumiere. C R Acad Sci 46:448 – 452; 1858. 22:1479 –1487; 1951.
Nucleonics. Scintillators and semiconductors. Nucleonics re- Schulman JH, Shurcliff W, Ginther RJ, Attix FH. Radiopho-
ports the scintillation counter symposium. Nucleonics May toluminescence dosimetry system of the U.S. Navy. Nucle-
18:85–100; 1960. onics (October):52–54; 1953.
Oliphant M. Rutherford, reflections of the Cambridge days. Schulman JH, Kirk RD, West EJ. Use of lithium borate for
New York: Elsevier Pub Co; 1972. thermoluminescence dosimetry. In: Attix FH, ed. Lumines-
Pardue LA, Goldstein N, Wollan EO. Photographic film as a cence dosimetry. Proc. Int Conf Lumin Dos June 21–23,
pocket radiation dosimeter. CH-1553; April 8, 1944. 1965. 1967: 113–117.
Sherr R. Scintillation counter for the detection of alpha-
Patton DD. Roentgen and the “new light”—Roentgen’s mo-
particles. Rev Sci Instr 18:767–770; 1947.
ment of discovery. Part 3: the genealogy of Roentgen’s
Shirley DA. Applications of germanium gamma-ray detectors.
barium platinocyanide screen. Invest Radiol 28:954 –961;
Nucleonics (March):62– 66; 1965.
1993.
Simpson J. Four-pi solid angle G-M counters. Rev Sci Instr
Posey JC. Calorimetry for measuring radioactivity. Isotop Rad 15:119 –122; 1944.
Tech 1:92–95; 1963. Simpson J. Air proportional counters. United States Atomic
Raben MS, Bloembergen N. Determination of radioactivity by Energy Commission; MDDC-1315; October 8, 1945.
solution in a liquid scintillator. Science 114:363–364; 1951. Simpson J. A precision alpha-proportional counter. Rev Sci
Regener E. Uber zahlung der a-teilchen durch die szintillation Instr 18:884 – 893; 1947.
und die grobe des elektrischen elementarquantums. Verh D Simpson J. Air proportional counters. Rev Sci Instr 19:733–
D Phys Ges 10:78 – 83; 1908 (in German). 743; 1948.
Regener VH. Decade counting circuits. Rev Sci Instr 17:185– Steidley KD, Eastman RM, Stabile RJ. Observations of visual
189; 1946. sensations produced by cerenkov radiation from high-
Reynolds GT, Harrison FB, Salvini G. Liquid scintillation energy electrons. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 17:685– 690;
counters. Phys Rev 78:488; 1950. 1989.
Reynolds GT. Liquid scintillation counters. Nucleonics May: Steidley KD, Zeik GS, Ouellette R. Another 60Co hot cell
68 – 69; 1950. accident. Health Phys 36:437– 441; 1979.
Rheinberger H. Putting isotopes to work: liquid scintillation Strong J. Procedures in experimental physics. New York:
counters 1950 –1970. Preprint. Max-Planck-Institut fur Wis- Prentice-Hall, Inc.; 1938.
senschaftsgeschichte; 121; 1999. Taft RB. A simple radium detector. Am J Roentgenol Radiat
Roentgen W. Further observations on the properties of the Ther 31:689 – 690; 1934.
x-rays. In: Otto Glasser O, ed. Math u Naturw Mitt a d Taplin GV. Chemical and colorimetric indicators. In: Hine GJ,
Sitzgsber Preuss Akad Wiss, Physik-Math; Kl 392; 1897. Brownell GL, eds. Radiation dosimetry. New York: Aca-
[Reprinted, Roentgen W, Springfield: Charles C Thomas; demic Press Inc; 1956: 357– 410.
1958.] Taplin GV, Douglas CH, Sanchez B. Colorimetric method for
Rutherford E. Uranium radiation and the electrical conduction dosimetry of 10 –100 r. Nucleonics 9(August):73–77; 1951.
produced by it. Phil Mag ser 5(xlvii):109 –163; 1899. Tavendale AJ, Ewan GT. A high resolution lithium-drift
Rutherford E. The scattering of the alpha and beta rays and the germanium gamma-ray spectrometer. Nuc Instr Meth
structure of the atom. Proc Manchester Lit Phil Soc, IV 25:185–187; 1963.
55:18 –20; 1911. Taylor LS. The measurement of x-rays with liquid ionization
Rutherford E, Chadwick J, Ellis CD. Radiations from radioac- chambers. Radiology 29:323–328; 1937.
tive substances. Cambridge: University Press; 1932. Taylor LS. X-ray measurements and protection 1913–1964.
Rutherford E, Geiger H. An electrical method of counting the NBS Special Publication 625; 1981.
number of alpha particles from radio-active substances. Thomson JJ. On the discharge of electricity produced by the
Proc R Soc A 81:141–161; 1908. Roentgen rays, and the effects produced by these rays on
Rutherford E, Geiger H. Photographic registration of alpha dielectrics through which they pass. Proc R Soc Lond
particles. Phil Mag ser 6(xxiv):618 – 623; 1912. 59:274 –276; 1896a.
A history of radiation detection instrumentation ● P. W. FRAME 135
Thomson JJ. The Roentgen rays. Nature 53:391–392; 1896b. Van Duuren K, Jaspers AJM, Hermsen J. G-M counters.
Thomson JJ, Rutherford E. On the passage of electricity Nucleonics (June):86 –94; 1959.
through gases exposed to roentgen rays. Phil Mag ser Van Heerden PJ. The crystal counter. Amsterdam: North
5(xlii):392– 407; 1896. Holland Publishing Co; 1945.
Tobias CA, Todd P. Space radiation biology and related topics. Wernli C, Kahilainen J. Direct ion storage dosimetry systems
New York: Academic Press; 1974. for photon, beta and neutron radiation with instant readout
Tochilin E, Davis RH, Clifford J. A calibrated roentgen-ray capabilities. Radiat Protect Dosimetry 96:255–259; 2001.
film badge dosimeter. Am J Roentgenol Radiat Ther Nucl Wiedemann E, Schmidt GC. Ueber luminescenz. Ann Phys
Med 64:475– 488; 1950. Chem Neue Folge 54:604; 1895.
Wilson CTR. The effect of Roentgen’s rays on cloudy conden-
Townsend JS. The conductivity produced in gases by the sation. Proc Roy Soc (London) 59:338 –339; 1896.
motion of negatively charged ions. Phil Mag 1:198 –227; Wulf T. Phys Zeits 15 15:250, 611; 1914.
1901. Wynn-Williams CE. A thyratron “scale of two” automatic
Tracerlab Inc. Tracerlog No. 30. November 1950. counter. Proc R Soc (London) A 136:312–324; 1932.
Trost A. Uber zahlrohre mit dampfzusatz. Zeit Physik Yokota R, Nakajima S. Recent improvements in radiophotolu-
105:399 – 444; 1937. minescent dosimetry. In: Attix FH, ed. Luminescence do-
Trout D. Health physics before there were health physicists. In: simetry. Proc Int Conf Lumin Dos June 21–23, 1965; 1967:
Kathren RL, Ziemer PL, eds. Health physics: a backward 284 –299.
glance. New York: Pergamon Press; 1980: 11–20. f f