Gamma-ray energy measurement for 177mLu with a precision pulser

Abstract

Energies of 38 gamma rays in the range 100–460 keV emitted in the decay of 177mLu were measured precisely with a Ge spectrometer based on the gamma-ray primary energy standards of 169Yb and 192Ir. The nonlinearity correction for the spectrometer was obtained from the amplitude of the pulser pulses as determined from the dc voltage measured with a high precision digital voltmeter. Our experiment shows that this method is convenient and capable of determining the gamma-ray energy with an accuracy of 10 ppm or less when based on two standard lines in gamma-ray spectra. The final energy values are obtained from adjustment by the Ritz rule. Forty-three gamma-ray energies were determined within errors of 10 ppm and they are useful for secondary energy standards.