Bubble chamber was a device that physicists once used extensively to study subatomic particles, units of matter smaller than an atom. Researchers used the chamber mainly to study particles produced in particle accelerators. The bubble chamber has been replaced by various electronic devices. See Particle accelerator; Particle detector.
A bubble chamber consisted mainly of a cylindrical or boxlike container of liquid. The liquid was heated far above its boiling point, but put under pressure to prevent boiling. When the pressure was rapidly reduced, the liquid boiled at the slightest disturbance.
Subatomic particles passing through the chamber disturbed the liquid, forming vapor bubbles along their tracks. Scientists used photographs of the tracks to measure the mass, electric charge, and other properties of the particles. The bubbles expanded quickly and had to be photographed within thousandths of a second to get sharp pictures of the tracks.
Donald A. Glaser, an American physicist, invented the bubble chamber in 1952. Glaser won a Nobel Prize for physics in 1960 for his invention.
