Abstract
Gamma-ray spectrometry is a very powerful tool for radioactivity measurements. The gamma-ray spectrometer laboratory in Centre for Energy Research and Training (CERT), Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria is accredited to perform measurements of radioactive content of samples collected from the environment, food chain or industrial products with the aid of a high resolution HPGe detector. For accurate gamma-ray spectrometry, certain measurements were considered; the efficiency of the detector was performed experimentally against energies within the range of 59.50 keV (241Am) to 2204.50 keV (226Ra) for the respective geometries of 1 - 6 cm. The sustained solid angle relations with respect to the inverse square of sample geometries from 1 - 6 cm were evaluated. Another main point of this work was focused on the efficiency at geometry of 5 cm with respect to the three selected energies: 661.60 keV (137Cs), 1173.2 keV (60Co) and 1332 keV (60Co) for the main axis, ten degree off main axis, forty five degree off main axis and ninety degree off the detector main axis. In order to verify optimum geometries in our laboratory for both short lived and long lived radionuclides analyses, the evaluation of efficiencies for the respective energies: 1173.2 keV (60Co), 1332.5 keV (60Co), 1764 keV (226Ra) and 2294 keV (226Ra) were plotted against geometries of 1 to 6 cm from the detector end cap along the main axis.
Highlights
Gamma-ray spectrometry using High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detectors has been an essential and principalHow to cite this paper: Njinga, R.L. and Jonah, S.A. (2015) Calibration of the High Purity Germanium Gamma-Ray Spectrometer in Cert, Abu Zaria, Nigeria
There are many technical and methodological aspects to be taken into account for an optimal radioactivity analysis which includes: careful choice of the detector and the radioactive standard sources used for calibration; sample geometry, matrix, position relative to the detector; passive or active detector shielding; various corrections: background, dead time, geometry, deconvolution of overlapped spectrum peaks, true coincidence summing [1] [9]
Gamma-ray spectrometry based on high purity germanium detectors is a very powerful tool that has a very wide range of applications in radiation measurement, generally and specially in environmental radioactivity measurement in different bulk samples
Summary
Gamma-ray spectrometry using High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detectors has been an essential and principalHow to cite this paper: Njinga, R.L. and Jonah, S.A. (2015) Calibration of the High Purity Germanium Gamma-Ray Spectrometer in Cert, Abu Zaria, Nigeria. The gamma-ray spectrometry method is used to perform both qualitative and quantitative radioactivity analysis, for solid, liquid and gaseous samples [4] [5]. The high resolution detectors (HPGe) are suitable for samples containing many radionuclides (e.g. from the natural radioactive series), when the gamma- ray spectrum presents a large number of peaks to be resolved. These detectors are expensive and must be kept at very low temperatures (in liquid nitrogen) for a correct functioning [10]
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