Thin−film breakdown counter of fission fragments

Abstract
A new kind of detector of heavy fission fragments is described. The detector is a thin−film capacitor in which electrical breakdowns are nonshorting. The detection is based on the counting of breakdowns which arise when heavy fission fragments hit the capacitor. These breakdowns occur at fields distinctly lower than those due to the application of the field only. The lowering of the breakdown field is discussed considering the thermal or electronic effects for silicon dioxide detectors. The detectors offer immediate information on the magnitude of particle fluxes and may possibly serve to identify the particles.