Renzotech cloud chamber (Part 1 : bragging)

DIY nuclear decay visual detector.

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Link to HD videos:

• Americium 241 decay (short)
• Americium 241 decay (3 mins)
• Background radiation

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Now how cool does that title sound? Damn cool. The crave for radioactive coolness really started when I watched this video (cloud chamber starts at 9m00s) :

If you’ve never watched any of this channel video, I urge you to go check it and meet Martyn Poliakoff.

A quick search in Youtube for information about cloud chambers will show you how ridiculously easy they are to build. This one is even using a beer cup, which really began to make my ghetto-tech sense tingling. I had to make one.

How it works

More precisely, how I would explain how it works to someone that won’t just read wikipedia, and who I’m sure that someone won’t be able to point out how wrong I am.

1. Some vapour is in a state where small perturbation can turn it into liquid (supersaturated ).
2. Particles (or rays) with enough energy (like, going at at blazing speeds, thousands of km/h) can change the number of electrons on a whole bunch of atoms in the vapor.
3. That change is enough perturbation, that they leave tiny clouds of condensed vapor in their path.
4. Tiny cloud disappear, by evaporation and mostly just falling down.

Looks simple. It is quite simple, but a few technical difficulties had to be dealt with. More details of the renzotech to follow in another post.