Donald Arthur Glaser developed the bubble chamber in 1952 during experimental particle research at Michigan.[ref]
His 1960 lecture, Elementary particles and bubble chambers, describes evacuated capillary bulbs containing pure diethyl ether. Cooling one bulb reduced pressure; the other remained hot. A cobalt-60 source initiated boiling. Small glass chambers subsequently used hot-oil baths, hand-cranked pistons and high-speed photography. Automatic cycling with counter-controlled flashes produced finer tracks. Local ionization deposits energy that can initiate bubble nucleation.[ref]
Later metal-chamber photographs compared operation with and without a nearby radioactive source: wall boiling occurred without interior tracks; irradiation produced tracks before disruptive flow ended sensitivity.[ref]
Elementary Particles and Bubble Chambers by Donald Arthur Glaser. pp. 539–543, Fig. 6
These observations separate two questions: can radiation start boiling, and can a detector preserve the geometry of a passing charged particle? Whole-vessel boiling alone answers only the first. Wall background, finite sensitivity and growth before photography constrain the second.
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