Use of a bare CaF2 (Eu) scintillator to assess the escape peak formalism and the fundamental parameter method

Abstract

AbstractEscape peak and thick target yield formalisms are shown to be equivalent, although experimental results using a practical source–target–detector geometry favor the latter. A bare non‐hygroscopic CaF2(Eu) scintillator is used to measure the K X‐ray yield from thick targets of pure elements excited by monoenergetic photons. The scintillator is found free of dead layer up to the limit of 0.1 μm: it can thus detect photons above 2 keV energy with intrinsic efficiency approaching 100%.