A method for determination of the 152Eu activity

Abstract

A new method for the absolute measurement of the 152Eu activity was established based on the 4πβ−γ spectroscopic coincidence method. It consists of a 4πβ counter and a Ge(Li) detector, in which the effective counting efficiencies of the 4πβ counter for β-rays conversion electrons, and Auger electrons were obtained by taking the intensity ratios for certain γ-rays between the single spectrum and the spectrum coincident with the pulses from the 4πβ counter.First, in order to verify the method, three different methods of the absolute measurement were performed with a prepared 60Co source to find excellent agreement among the results deduced by them. Next, the 4πβ − γ spectroscopic coincidence measurement was applied to 152Eu sources prepared by irradiating an enriched 151Eu target in a reactor. The result was compared with that obtained by the γ-ray spectrometry using a 152Eu standard source supplied by LMRI. They agreed with each other within an error of 1%.