Development of a portable gas-filled ionization chamber

A new portable gas-filled ionization chamber has been designed and constructed at the Physics Department of Sung Kyun Kwan University. To overcome the maximum count rate of ∼10⁵ particles per second of a conventional ionization chamber, which utilizes a Frisch grid, and to enhance the portability of a detector, we adopted the design of multiple electrodes and modified it from the original designs by Kimura et al. and Chae et al. The new design utilizes a stack of multiple electrodes installed perpendicular to the optical beam axis. This configuration provides a fast response time for the detector, which is essential for high-rate counting. The device has been tested with a ²⁴¹Am (t _1/2 = 432.2 years) radioactive α source, which mainly emits 5.486-MeV (branching ratio of 85%) and 5.443-MeV (branching ratio of 13%) α particles. An energy resolution of 6.3% was achieved.