After the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, radiation measurement became newly relevant for a lot of people. Geiger-Müller tubes, previously a curiosity, became simultaneously important and scarce.
Opengeiger.de (English-language version here) has complete instructions for making a Geiger counter without a Geiger-Müller tube. Instead, this counter uses a PIN photodiode and some carefully chosen operational amplifiers. The total cost of such a device is significantly cheaper than the alternative: under $1 for the diode and around $5 for the rest. And since the PIN photodiode in question is used in many other devices, it’s not a niche component like a Geiger tube is.
The secret sauce is in component selection and tuning. Opengeiger uses the BPW34 diode because it is relatively common and has a large surface area, but also because it has a very low capacitance when reverse-biased. The first-stage opamp choice is also fairly critical. Considering that an average gamma radiation event produces only around 10 nanoamps for about 50 microseconds, a lot of amplification (100,000x), low noise, and high bandwidth are a must.
If you want to get started with this project, you could first browse through the explanation (PDF) to get an overview of the project’s goals, read up on all the technical considerations (PDF) or just head straight for the DIY instructions for the “Stuttgarter Geigerle” (PDF, schematic is on the last page). All of the documentation is chock-full of relevant references and totally worth the read.
Maxim posted a similar AN about year ago: http://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/2236
That Application Note was posted in 2003, not 2013.
Under “Other DIY Instructions”, OpenGeiger actually links to that Application Note in PDF form.
About 10 years ago … Sept. 2003
Whoops, I probably only looked at the last digit of the year. Sorry!
Good, good, keep em’ coming, it’s about time we finally put the GM tube away in favor of silicon. The more these become widely known, the more cheap radiation detectors will become available.
I use my geiger counter as a PIN diode.
Silicon diodes can only pick up certain types of energy (mostly gamma). You’re never going to pick up alpha radiation with a PIN diode. You’ll have a very long wait if you want geiger tubes to go away. This Opengeiger device is mostly useless as a general purpose radation detection device.
The problem is not the diode, but the case around it. If you can cut open the case, the diode can be used. The website has some pictures of a diode in a big metal can that’s cut open, and works as an alpha radiation detector.
Simple: get a metal can high frequency transistor, decap it without damaging the chip inside, and you get a photodiode with built-in amplification with its base pin left floating when properly biased. When the particle strikes the B-E junction you get a big amplified spike.
what website has can cut open to detect alpha?
If you remove all the coating, leaving just the bare die, it will detect alpha. (do a bit of googling, there is an article about using diodes to detect aplha)
Apparently you have never taken the face off of ANY photodiode. Alpha impacts are quite strong. I have also found that if you remove the mesh from the front of the electret mic in those amplified hearing devices like RadioShack and sharper image used to sell and place ²⁴¹Americium near the holes you can hear the gentle rain of alpha nuclei smacking the mic surface. This was the type of mic with the tiny built in JFET. I assume a micromechanical mic would work as well I do not know if detection was due to actual physical impact or by the charge the alpha dumps into the JFET.
I would suggest that the moment someone integrates this kind of design in to a small (around the 20mm square marker) cheap (around $5) smd (for ease of mass production) ‘duino/pi compatible sensor board, they will fly off the shelves. Kickstarter anybody?
There are radiation meters the size of pens, for people working around radiation sources, but still use ionization chamber. I thing it is because they can be more sensible.
But speakiong of what you want: http://www.dgkelectronics.com/a-radiation-detector-with-a-solid-state-pin-diode-sensor/
Or much simpler:
http://techlib.com/science/geiger.html#Worlds Smallest
Oh, HaD split the link because of the space. So, you have to copy the link and open manually.
http://techlib.com/science/geiger.html#Worlds%20Smallest
Fixed link: http://techlib.com/science/geiger.html#Worlds%20Smallest
You can use silicon solar cells as radiation detectors and that gives you a nice large capture area.
Would the leakage and high capacitance mean it would only be sensitive to high flux in current mode?
You would need to use a charge amplifier.
Photodiodes are literally that, but not so excessively large. Solar cells average out collisions, whereas an array of photodiodes would give a detection grid. It’s a bit like having a touchscreen that only gives the average of the force on it, and no coordinates.
I’ll be the pedant in the room. It’s not a Geiger counter. A GEIGER COUNTER is a Geiger-Muller tube opperated in the Geiger voltage region for the tube. You can also operate a Geiger-Muller tube at a lower voltage as a GAS PROPORTIONAL COUNTER. GM tubes are essentially capacitors with high breakdown voltage and a specific gas mixture for the dielectric composed of a noble gas to supply the electrons, and a quench gas, such as methane, to stop the discharge once it’s started.
Silicon and Germanium detectors are a different type of detector geared towards gamma ray detection. (GM tubes don’t see many gammas, mostly beta and x-ray). Si and Ge detectors are reverse biased diodes.
By this point, I feel like Geiger Counter is kind of a genericized term.
Not really. That’s like saying penicillin is a genericized term for anti-biotics.
Ummm… yep, that’s pretty accurate. I’m sure I’ve heard people say “A little penicillin will take care of that!” before.
I disagree. Geiger tubes do detect gamma photons, and are likely much more sensitive to them than silicon, although high energy gamma rays can be an issue. If we take this to its logical conclusion, based on your comment, the only particles a Geiger tube would be beta particles, and possibly x-rays, which would not be particularly useful!
G-M tubes rarely directly detect gammas — it detects the high speed electrons emitted from the shell of the tube. That’s why the shell is steel instead of the more easily worked Al, and the efficiency WRT energy is very variable. However some tubes are designed to be less sensitive to the energy. Don’t ask me how that is done — likely available on the internet. Gamma detection efficiency is a function of the density of electrons and the number. So high Z and large volume. the interaction is (low energy) photoeffect, (medium energy) conpton effct, and (high energy) pair production. All this in better detail and more correctly available on the internet. this explains why G-Ms. are poor gamma detectors (except the shell). Low pressure gas and low Z. proportional counter tubes (more expensive ones) use Xe at two atmosphers. the can detect rahter high energy X-rays, and usefully at rather good ersolution (comparred to crystal detectors (NaI). bc. too busy to check text
Or perhaps just take your mobile phone, cover the camera’s lense, record the black video and count white flashes. Better resolution with a few mm2 CMOS sensor. Possibly can detect the 3D direction as well .. job done, no reason to reinvent the wheel again. Chinese 4 core Andrid phone with 3G, GPS, wifi, BT, 2 MPixel camera for $45 if you buy more than 10 …
I tried a couple of apps on a couple of phones and all fail. I don’t know why yet…
Get a ticket for Chernobyl or Fukushima …
They will not let you anywhere near the interesting (“hot”) parts in Fukushima…
As for Chernobyl – while not near the conflict zone, right now it is not advisable to travel to Ukraine as a tourist. With all the increased security and everything, they most likely will not let you roam around the zone like you sometimes can (some tours will not even let you into the grassy areas), so that you could try to find a fuel fragment (insanely radioactive, sand-grain sized pieces of actual reactor core lying around).
If you want a powerful, yet more available source of ionizing radiation, a medical X-ray will do just fine if you stuff the device right in front of the X-ray head.
Or if you’re in the US, you can rent (sadly not buy) fairly active test sources.
You can also use a smoke detector as a test source.
Don’t take it apart for this purpose, though, because that is (also sadly) illegal.
Smoke detectors are alpha emitters. The glass on your camera lens will stop the vast majority.
Many fake apps or apps meant to work with their own sensor. I can verify the heck out of “Radiation Camera” from Apicture Analysis on Play Store. But it will only work with cameras sensitive enough to do timed exposure or smooth images in poor lighting. It also needs to calibrate it’s use of the camera by placing it in total darkness to measure pixel noise over time. If there is ANY light it can not do this and will tell you so. So if the camera uses LIDAR or IR rangefinding and even a trace of that comes back in the covered camera then it will overload the Radiation Camera app. I see to see how many smoke detector pellets I could pile on to get the gamma count over 100 per minute. Or turn the pellet facing away and see the gamma drop slightly. Or place the pellet BEHIND the phone and it still sees the gamma. These are week gamma so a fat chunk of steel knocks the gamma down pretty well. AND it gives you micro images of the pixel energies at the impact sight on the imaging chip. You can get some interesting burrowing and squiggles sometimes.
THIS ISN’T A GEIGER COUNTER PERIOD. it detects gama rays for gods fucking sake but not the killer radiation from toxic nuclear sites that kills you.
period.
basic physics folks. geiger counters are for measuring radiation from transuranic elements and irradiated materials. not from detecting gamma rays from outer space.
It will also be sensitive to alpha and beta radiation , which just about covers all radiation from the decay of radioisotopes. Alpha is less likely because these particles will be stopped by anything used tkeep light off the sensor, but cheap geiger tubes have a similar problem because of the way they are constructed (no window to let alpha particles in). The bigger issue , and possibly the one you so eloquently tried to describe, is the lack of sensitivity (10’s of counts over a minute vs 100’s or higher for a Geiger tube).
The Geiger tube has in-built amplification similar to a photon multiplier. So it can detect single events.
I found a similar project, also with the BPW34 diode, at Elektor a while ago.
http://www.elektor-magazine.com/en/magazine-contents/article.html?tx_elektorarticle_list%5Barticle%5D=19753&tx_elektorarticle_list%5Baction%5D=show
The actual article is from 2011.
I bought all the parts but didn’t assemble it yet, because I had problems compiling the software which is written in BASCOM. Is anyone capable of making a .hex for the ATmega88 out of it? Otherwise I would try to rewrite the software in C.
Also http://www.radiation-watch.org/p/english.html, a bit more expensive at $60, but uses a photodiode designed for the purpose. I have the embedded version, and it gets reliable measurements after about 2min ofcounting. It also outputs pulses identified as caused by vibration. Vibration causing non radiation derived pulses appears to be a major disadvantage of this type of sensor.
Also see: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14209?utm_campaign=April%207%2C%202017&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=50144316&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9X0Ja4oZi8WqEYwTqk0x0M_-M2mhZPwv1QIw_CDPqXdHS42iPtkUl18usNYrxuXaT94fyvslZUB5jwxF-JFL4RwVppVg&_hsmi=50144470
Article from hackaday last year covers the exact same thing. How about some original content or is that to hard for the current writers.
http://hackaday.com/2013/06/03/a-very-tiny-gamma-ray-detector/
Agreed!
I can also reccomend the “Gamma Microphone” project to you:
http://www.b-kainka.de/bastel131.html
Is there any advantage to using a Geiger-Muller tube over this type? I was of the understanding that part of the difference is that the tubes are calibrated where other solid state methods may not be. Is there an IC designed for this purpose that is available to hobbyists?
The advantage would be that you don’t need an inefficient bulky HV circuit.
the bare die posts are worth trying?
I tried the techlib circuit up to the coupling capacitor and used a piezo ear piece instead of the LED circuit and I could not get this to work. I was able to effectively shielding the circuit from light/Electromagnetic Radiation, but it did not respond to radiation at all and I had a pretty powerful source.
Using higher voltage divider resistors you would save about 2mA.
For the AD8666 you could also use only one 3 resistors divider.
Since we have a variety of designs in disc ussion here, I must mention a youtube video I saw several years ago utilizing a webcam camera. The experimenter could see individual flashes of light. I believe, of course, that the lens was removed. I am not sure the type of chip – CCD, CMOS, or NMOS.
Incidentally, techlib was a yahoo group moderated by Charles Wenzel. He has several websites, and will usually respond to pointed technical questions about his circuits. He has done mostly the air-ion detector types, in which a central axial electrode is connected to the gate of an FET, a 2n4117 as I (dimly) recall. Recently, he has been working on lightning detectors.
My interest originally was in Radon as a cause of lung cancer. Then I did more research, and found some work by the EPA on non-smoker lung cancer. Then I found out that ALL the non-smoker lung cancer cases were n persons who had quit. So at this point, I am concluding that Radon does NOT cause lung cancer, since the pool of non-smokers doesn’t contribute any cases.
Can anybody tell me what could possibly be behind my wall that reads a 800+ uT on my detector?