Identification of 90Sr and 204Tl beta radiation sources by energy distribution with a 3GEM detector

Abstract

This paper presents the performance of a 3GEM in terms of identification of high and low beta energy radiation sources through the energy distribution of the main beta radiation sources used for industrial application 90Sr and 204Tl. We compare the beta radiation theoretical energy loss into the drift zone with experimental energy distribution at different 3GEM voltages. The experimental results show that the Most Probable Value (MPV) of the fitted Landau distribution obtained from 90Sr and 204Tl obtained a degree of error lower than 14% in comparison to the theoretical calculation. Additionally, high energy beta radiation source (90Sr) is identified in comparison to low energy (204Tl) - taking into account the MPV and sigma values from the fitted Landau distribution. These results are essential to design and implement a new application that utilizes the performance and special characteristics of the 3GEM for beta radiation detection and identification.