Construction of a Particle Counter

Particle counter (PC) is an instrument that detects and counts particles. Aerosol particle counters are used to determine the air quality by counting and sizing the number of particles in air1. This information is useful in determination of the amount of pollutants inside building or ambient air. Particle counters are extensively employed in monitoring the environment inside cleanrooms. This is necessary in semiconductor manufacturing, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, aerospace and other fields that are very sensitive to environmental contamination2. In this paper we report the design and construction of a simple particle counter.