I'm planning to build a small cloud chamber.
The design is the usual: alcohol evaporates at the top by gently heating it with a thin wire and small current. The vapour sinks to the bottom of the chamber, where the temperature is significantly lower than at the top, and causes the vapour to super-cool. Ion tracks caused by fast moving particles can be observed as mist tracks.
My question is about the bottom plate temperature.
The usual design uses a (near) room temperature solvent and very cold bottom plate to achieve a big temperature gradient.
Could a cloud chamber be constructed that would use just a slightly cold bottom plate, and a more aggressively heated liquid? I'm thinking about ethanol or isopropyl alcohol evaporated at 60°C, and a bottom plate temperature at maybe only 0°C
Could this work? Is it just the temperature gradient, or the temperature itself is important?