Abstract
The interaction of ionizing radiation (X rays or high-energy particles) with gases results in the creation of electron-ion pairs. For low-energy X rays a small cluster of primary ionization is produced close to the point of the initial photoionization. High-energy particles, however, lose a small fraction of their energy in each of a number of ionizing collisions resulting in a long track composed of clusters of ionization. We report here that the light signals emitted by a parallel-plate proportional counter are fast enough to allow the individual electrons in the ionization clusters to be resolved. By counting the number of electrons for low energy X ray events we demonstrate an improvement in energy resolution of more than a factor of two over conventional proportional counters.
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Siegmund, O., Culhane, J., Mason, I. et al. Individual electrons detected after the interaction of ionizing radiation with gases. Nature 295, 678–679 (1982). https://doi.org/10.1038/295678a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/295678a0
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