Spark chamber

Today, working spark chambers are mostly found in science museums and educational organisations, where they are used to demonstrate aspects of particle physics and astrophysics.

Spark chambers consist of a stack of metal plates placed in a sealed box filled with a gas such as helium, neon or a mixture of the two.

In order to control when this voltage is applied, a separate detector (often containing a pair of scintillators placed above and below the box) is needed.

When this trigger senses that a cosmic ray has just passed, it fires a fast switch to connect the high voltage to the plates.

A streamer chamber, in contrast, typically has only two plates, at least one of which is transparent (e.g. wire mesh or a conductive glass).

Spark chamber demonstration
Spark chamber demonstration
A spark chamber at the physics museum of the Sapienza University of Rome
A proton – antiproton collision recorded using a streamer chamber in the UA5 experiment at CERN