The use of thin plastic foils in low-level alpha spectrometry

Abstract

To prevent radioactive surface contamination of solid state detectors for low-level alpha spectrometry, thin plastic foils are used as stopper foils for recoil nuclei. Measurements show that a stopping efficiency of 100% for recoil nuclei may be obtained at the expense of approximately 20% loss of energy resolution (FWHM) for peaks in the resulting spectrum of the source due to straggling of α particles.