A particle detector using solid neon frozen from a neon-hydrogen mixture

In developing an electromagnetic calorimeter to improve the analysis of neutrino events in large bubble chambers, the possibility of using a sandwich structure of lead and solid neon has been discussed. The tests reported here demonstrate that when neon-hydrogen mixtures, available in large quantities at CERN and Fermilab, are frozen in a small ionization counter the pulses produced by high energy muons are comparable to those seen previously with pure neon. It has also been demonstrated that contaminated and thus insensitive liquid argon yields clear particle pulses after it has been frozen solid.