In a Townsend avalanche there are many excited molecules formed in addition to the secondary ions. Within a few nanoseconds, many of these excited molecules return to their ground state by emitting an ultraviolet photon. This light may travel centimetres through the gas before being reabsorbed, either in a photoelectric interaction involving a less tightly bound shell of a gas atom or at a solid surface. If a free electron is liberated in this absorption process, it will begin to drift toward the anode wire and can produce its own avalanche. By this mechanism, one avalanche can breed another, spreading throughout the entire volume of the gas-multiplication region around the anode wire. This uncontrolled spread of avalanches throughout the entire detector is known as a Geiger discharge.

In a proportional counter the spread of avalanches is inhibited through the addition of a small amount of a second gas (for example, methane) that absorbs the ultraviolet photons without producing free electrons. In a Geiger-Müller counter, conditions are such that each avalanche creates more than one additional avalanche, and their number grows rapidly in time. The propagation of avalanches is eventually terminated by the buildup of a cloud of positive charge around the anode wire that consists of the positive ions that were also formed during the avalanches. Ions move thousands of times more slowly than free electrons in the same electric field, and in the short span of a few microseconds needed to propagate the avalanches, their movement is minimal. Because most avalanches are clustered around the anode wire, this positive space charge reduces the electric field in the critical multiplication region below the strength required for additional avalanches to form, and the Geiger discharge ceases. In the process a huge number of ion pairs have been formed, and pulses as large as one volt are produced by the Geiger-Müller tube. Because the pulse is so large, little demand is placed on the pulse-processing electronics, and Geiger counting systems can be extremely simple.

Gas-filled detectors can be operated in several regimes. At low applied voltage, no gas multiplication takes place, and the detector functions as an ion chamber. At some minimum voltage, avalanches begin to form, marking the start of the proportional-counter region, and they become more vigorous as the voltage increases. Finally, at high voltages a transition to the Geiger-Müller mode of operation takes place as the large avalanches inevitably result in their uncontrolled spread. Because the Geiger discharge is self-limiting, radiation that creates only a single ion pair in the gas will result in an output pulse as large as that produced by a particle that deposits a great deal of energy and creates many ion pairs. Therefore, the amplitude of the output pulse carries no energy information, and Geiger tubes are useful only in pulse-counting systems. They will produce a pulse for virtually every charged particle that reaches the fill gas, and many Geiger tubes are fitted with a thin entrance window to allow weakly penetrating radiations such as alpha particles to enter the gas.

As with all gas-filled detectors, the detection efficiency for gamma rays is low, only a few percent. Almost no gamma-ray photons interact directly in the gas. A pulse can be produced if the gamma ray interacts in the solid wall of the tube and the secondary electron that is formed subsequently enters the gas before losing all its energy. As typical secondary electrons travel no more than one or two millimetres in solids, only the inner layer of the wall closest to the gas will contribute any secondary electrons. The probability that the incoming gamma ray interacts in this thin layer is small, leading to the low value of detection efficiency.

Nonetheless, Geiger tubes make useful instruments to check for the presence of alpha, beta, or gamma radiation. Despite the fact that the gamma detection efficiency is low, a Geiger tube will respond to single gamma-ray photons and thus can indicate lower levels of gamma radiation than is possible from an ion chamber operated in less sensitive current mode. The output of a portable Geiger survey meter may be displayed using a rate meter to indicate the average rate of pulse production from the tube or through the generation of an audible sound on a loudspeaker for each detected pulse. This is the origin of the stereotypical clicking of the Geiger counter that is often associated with radiation detectors.