Some Modern Trends in Radiation Measurement: Relevance to RMCC R&D should go hand-by-hand with training.

. In addition to HOW, a technician should at least recognize WHY. Can we provide standard reference samples for everything? Improve quality locally, regionally and globally. Interdisciplinary. Borrow or adopt techniques from other fields of research.
Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh). 1

 Historically, chronic issues in gamma spectrometry are: Shape of extended sample. Self absorption. Summing coincidences. Measuring low activities go closer to the detector higher detection efficiency vs. severe calibration problems.

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

Inter-comparison
134Cs

from Chernobyl!!!

Good data are acquired comparatively.

Can we always do that?

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh). 3

Inter-comparison Unless sample and standard

(having the same radioisotopes)

have identical shape and density, are in identical containers and are measured at the same distance, there will be errors that are not accounted for by the routine calibration processes.

152Eu

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

Monte Carlo
Complex decay schemes!! Neutron activated isotopes, Nuclear Astrophysics Environmental, food, water . Classical correction needs TOTAL efficiency. MC X Find all correction factors.

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

Why MC ?

Design a setup. Optimize a setup.

Geometry, materials, orientation, fields, electronics, acquisition, analysis

Save money and time.

Calibrate a setup !
Solve chronic issues. Wide scope of applications from environmental, medical to nuclear astrophysics ..!!
Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh). 6

How ?
Geometry of the system (Modeling). Materials. Fundamental particles of interest. Primary events. Physics processes governing particle interactions with materials and fields. Storage of events and tracks. Visualization of the detector and particle trajectories. Analysis of simulation data at different levels of detail and refinement. Non-commercial software, you write your own code using open source toolkits.
7

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

Validation
Simulation results exhibit excellent agreement when compared to real documented and experimental data for relative and absolute efficiencies. The unknown activity soil and water samples are actually reference materials used in inter-comparison program. Relative Efficiency: Manufacturer 50 % Simulation 50.19 s 1.06 %
Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).
4 10000 10

10

3 2 1

1000 10

Counts

10 1.16

1.18

10 3 10 2 10 1 10 0 10

10 10 1.32 1.34

2.50

100
Simulation Experiment

10 1 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 E K (MeV) 2.5 3.0

Correction Factors

Geometric calibration Correction Factor

for Self-Absorption and Extended Source. No Coincidence Summing yet !

Point Source Air

Sample Container

Soil

Extended Source Detector

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh). 9

Correction Factors
GMX HPGe detector total geometric correction factor kg for a soil sample of 4 cm height.

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

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Correction Factors
True coincidences (not random).

Cascade summing. Sum with x-rays. Sum with Bremsstrahlung. Level lifetimes << resolving time. Possibility for simultaneous hits.

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

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Correction Factors
Bad calibration point. Can only be used to measure 152Eu (same as reference standard). Wrong monoenergetic efficiency at this energy. Can not be used to measure 57Co (same energy).

Can not do interpolation.

Negligible summing. Same distance but larger detector?

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

12

Correction Factors Classical mathematical correction??? Total efficiency????

Availability of monoenergetic sources? Depends on surrounding material. Scattering. X-rays. 511s.

Useless

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

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Correction Factors
Point Source Sample Container Air Soil

Extended Source Detector

Total Correction kT = kex ksa ks

Classical chronic issues related to correction factors are solved by MC. Now, why not go close to the detector and increase efficiency?! No problem!!

Mono

Decay

Soil

Detector

Extended Source
14

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

MC Calibration
Efficiency Calibration of the GMX System for Environmental Samples

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

15

Detector Design

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

16

Medical Hadron Therapy

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

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Other And Brachytherapy..

In addition to laboratories, application to: Environmental monitoring stations. In Situ systems.

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

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Neutron Activation

Neutron source: 7Li(p,n)7Be. Kinematically collimated beam. Optimized using MC.

Neutron energy distribution in the sample. Monte-Carlo calculations. Phys. Rev. C 69 (2004) 025803.

What if neutron capture x-section was very small?!

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh). 19

Coincidences
Plastic scintillator

BGO

Clover

BGO
Target

Beam

own stream View

Lead shield

Lateral View

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

20

Superior Background Suppression

Weakest resonances ever measured!!!

Physical Review C 68, 025801 (2003)

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh). 21

Phys. Rev. C 69 (2004) 025803.

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

22

Small Samples Correction Factor using experimental data ! Method established by MC. Relies on coincidences.
10000 1000 100
Counts per channel
328 487 815 432 751 867

Singles

40

1596

10
328 487

919

925

Gate

100
432

100

On-peak
815
919 925

50 751 750 800 867 850

10 1 4 2 0

900

950

Off-peak

500

1000

1500

Gamma-ray energy (keV)

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A 517 (2004) 230-239

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh). 23

Merits
Develop skills and experience. Triger creativity of talented young people. Keep updated with modern concepts. Not only e.g. IAEA recipes. Integration with universities. Regional and international collaboration.
Things to tell to young people:

Get spirit of ideas and apply to your setup. Invest in yourself.

Meeting of the RMCC Advisory Council, 12 June 2011, Amman - JORDAN (Saed Dababneh).

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