Abstract
Charge-coupled devices (CCDs) show potential for detecting charged particles and ionizing radiation. In particular, the clusters in the pixel images produced can be distinctive for [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] radiation, with [Formula: see text] particles causing symmetrical clusters or vertical tracks, and [Formula: see text] particles causing long, curved tracks. This distinction may be exploited by means of a handheld, portable device for in-situ detection, and identification of radioactive contamination. [Formula: see text]-particle track interactions in CCDs have been investigated. Simulative results using CASINO (Monte Carlo Simulation of Electron Trajectory in Solids) attempt to predict the size of [Formula: see text]-particle pixel clusters, using 512 keV and 310 keV electrons to represent [Formula: see text]Cs and [Formula: see text]Co, respectively. The number of pixels that higher-energy electrons traversed peaked at two, while lower-energy electrons had a smaller peak of 2.5 pixels, with a higher proportion of large cluster sizes. This finding is consistent with the higher scattering cross-section for lower-energy [Formula: see text] particles. By contrast, experimental data show a peak at one pixel for both sources, owing to the addition of smaller [Formula: see text] clusters. The [Formula: see text]Co source shows a higher proportion of large cluster sizes than the [Formula: see text]Cs, as was also seen in the simulation; however, the difference was small, as these sources are similar in energy. Simulative and experimental data will be used to process the CCD images further, with the objective of distinguishing between [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] radiation. Investigations have also been carried out using a [Formula: see text]Po [Formula: see text] particle source. Horizontal streaks were seen in the images produced, with an average length of 14 pixels. Further research will be performed using an accelerator to obtain different [Formula: see text]-particle energies.
Highlights
Detecting and identifying radioactive contamination is essential in the nuclear industry but may be difficult to achieve in situ for α radiation, owing to its highly ionizing nature
This paper focuses on the interactions of β particles with charge-coupled devices (CCDs)
Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles. These findings agree with several works that report these differences,[2,4,5] and it is observed that α-particle cluster sizes increase with increasing α-particle energy in a similar silicon-pixel detector.[6]. While these results suggest a potential use of CCD images in spectroscopy, research has focused on astronomical applications and investigating xrays—for example, where the effects of α and β radiation are undesirable.[1,7]
Summary
Detecting and identifying radioactive contamination is essential in the nuclear industry but may be difficult to achieve in situ for α radiation, owing to its highly ionizing nature. Α-particle spectroscopy is performed in a laboratory by processing the sample to isolate the radioisotope and detecting the α radiation under a vacuum. This procedure is not always practical because of the processing and equipment involved. Different types of artifacts may form in these images, depending on the interactions between the radiation and the CCD.[1,2] Hypothetically, if radiation scatters through several pixels, this will leave a trail of charge, resulting in a track of pixels. This “blooming” would be expected to leave a vertical streak of pixels
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