Flash chambers of plastic material

Abstract We describe a type of electrically-pulsed chamber, easy to realize at a low cost even in big size, consisting of a large number of thin, tubular “sensitive cells” of plastic material filled with a noble gas mixture at atmospheric pressure. The luminous discharges that occur in the cells traversed by ionizing particles upon application of the high-voltage sensitizing pulse, yield the tracks - and under certain conditions also the instants of traversal - of the particles themselves, with no severe restriction for their maximum number. Various optical or electrical read-out systems can be utilized to extract the information from the discharged cells. Examples of application of the technique in high-energy and nuclear physics are given.