Abstract
In this work, we investigate a novel approach to prepare high-performance alpha-particle solid sources fabricated on diamond thin support layers, offering the properties of diamond such as a low-Z material with corrosion and mechanical hardness. As-prepared solid sources onto boron-doped-diamond (BDD) substrate exhibited high performance of the autoradiography and spectroscopic resolution at the level of other more conventional materials such as stainless steel. A straightforward precipitation process in the Na2SO4 or NaNO3 simple electrolytes under mild experimental conditions with a low current of several mA.cm−2 were successfully developed onto BDD substrates for deposition of single 241Am as well as 239Pu, 241Am, and 244Cm mixed radionuclides. The results demonstrate that solid sources deposited onto such BDD substrates can match the performance of those prepared onto stainless steel substrates with excellent uniformity and high-resolution spectroscopy, together combining the robustness, chemical resilience, and X-ray transparence of the diamond. Alpha-particle spectra exhibiting a low full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 12.5 keV at the energy of 5.485 MeV (241Am) could be practically obtained for BDD substrates.
Highlights
Alpha-particle spectroscopy is commonly used for applications in various fields such as nuclear [1,2,3,4], environmental [5,6,7,8], artistic [9,10], and biological [11,12,13,14] samples
The 241 Am compound was used as a typical radioactive source for regarding how 241 Am layers were deposited onto BDD substrates and the effect of either Na2 SO4 or NaNO3 electrolyte solution was regarded
This work demonstrated that BDD substrate could be used as an alternative material for the
Summary
Alpha-particle spectroscopy is commonly used for applications in various fields such as nuclear [1,2,3,4], environmental [5,6,7,8], artistic [9,10], and biological [11,12,13,14] samples. They always exhibit a high atomic number, and for some applications in nuclear facilities the metal gets activated and becomes radioactive waste Inspired by these electro-precipitation methods, our group has developed an innovative device called “ActiFind” combining the electrochemistry of a thin synthetic layer of conductive boron-doped diamond (BDD), coupled with the radiometric detector made e.g., of silicon that allows the direct monitoring of alpha-particles in aqueous media using actinide deposition at a low current of several mA.cm−2 [35]. Such innovative device presents a high benefit for fast and on-field monitoring alpha-activity in nuclear and environmental samples due to direct deposition of radionuclide onto radiometric detector through a diamond thin layer. Alpha-particle sources based on BDD, a substrate that exhibits high corrosion hardness as well as a low atomic number
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