KJM5911 Lab Exercise 3 - Gamma Spectroscopy

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Revision as of 19:22, 14 October 2012 by Jonpo@uio.no (talk | contribs) (Experimental Procedure)

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UnderConstruction pict22.gifUnderConstruction pict17.gifWarning - under construction - you are welcome to read it, but it will change...

Learning Goals

After completing this exercise you should:

  • Understand the processes by which gamma radiation is absorbed in the detector.
  • Understand how the detector (and it's electronics) transform the absorbed energy from the gamma rays into electrical pulses which is continuously sorted according to pulse height and presented as a histogram (number of events vs. energy) - a "spectrum".
  • Know the basic parameters of a spectroscopy system (spectrum, real time, life time, dead time, channels, etc.).
  • Know the relationship between channel number and energy, how to derive this relationship ("energy calibration") and be able to evaluate it's uncertainty.
  • Recognise the different parts of a gamma-ray spectrum.
  • Know how "peaks" in the spectrum are analysed and understand the results (you should understand terms like: ROI, gross count, net count, peak fitting, FWHM, etc.). You should understand how the software calculate and subtract the background under the peaks.
  • Know the relationship between number of counts and gamma-rays emitted by the source (and the disintegration rate). I.e. how to perform an efficiency calibration.

Theory

Experimental Procedure

  • Part 1: Measurements
    • Get familar with the detector system and Maestro
    • Make energy calibration for Maestr
    • Measure various calibration point-sources (sealed)
    • Measure various large-volum calibration sources
    • Measure some unknown sources
  • Part 2: Energy calibration
    • Analyse the calibration spectra, for each "good" gamma-peak write down fitted centroid (channel number), net count, FWHM, fitted energy (from Maestro), and library energy (from Berkeley/Lund database).
    • Make (in Origin) a plot of library energy as function of gamma-peak centroid (channel number). Then make a linear fit to the data.
    • Use the linear fit parameters to calculate the energy your calibration yields for each of your gamma-peaks.
    • Calculate the difference between the library energies and the energies from your calibration. Do the same for the Maestro energis (compared to library energies). Plot the differences as function of gamma-peak energies. Evalute the plots!
    • Use your energy calibration and try to determine the unknown sources.
  • Part 2: Efficiency calibration

Safety Aspects

Theory