Some Properties of the Parallel Plate Spark Counter I

Abstract

A parallel plate spark counter was constructed to provide a uniformly sensitive avalanche volume for the detection of ionizing radiation. It is shown that such a counter avoids the random delay errors inherent in counters with cylindrical geometry.The spark counter provides a pulse of several hundred volts with a rise time of 3 \ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{} ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}9}$ second, requiring no additional amplification for detection. The recovery times show a marked dependence on the cathode material and, while they may be several seconds long for some materials, recovery times of the order of one millisecond have been obtained with the use of lead and tin cathodes.The problem of high resolution counting and also the problem of reducing the recovery time in spark counters is discussed.