Nuclear Detection and Measurements

Nuclear Detection and Measurements

A Detector is a transducer, which converts information about the incident radiation into a measurable electrical quantity. Detector converts energy of the incident radiation into charge, via the interaction with the detector material. Radiation could be either particulate (charged or neutral) or electromagnetic (xrays, gamma rays) in nature. Radiation deposits energy in the detecting medium, and the energy is converted into an electrical signal either directly or indirectly. Consequently each detected particle will appear as a pulse of electric charge. Thus the signal from the detector is directly proportional to the energy that has been deposited by the radiation during its interaction with the detector material. It is not guaranteed that the energy deposited by the radiation in the detector medium equals its total energy. The interaction of the incident radiation with the detecting medium could result in either complete or partial energy deposition.

Thus the interaction of the radiation with the detector results in the formation of information carriers. The magnitude of these carriers is related to the energy deposited by the radiation in the detector. For example typical values of energy required to form a signal charge of 1 electron in different media are Gases (ion-pairs) Semiconductor (electron-hole pair) Scntillators (electrons) 30 eV 3 to 10 eV 2 to 500 eV

Thus the signal emerging out from the detector should be proportional to the charge deposited in the detector by the radiation. Since the interaction of radiation with the detector medium is a probabilistic event, even a mono-energetic source would not result in a uniform signal at the output of the detector.

Lecture Note: Nuclear Measurement I

UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata

Nuclear Detection and Measurements

The charge is not obtained instantaneously at the detector output, but occurs after a certain time interval, which is essential for all the information carriers to be collected on application of an electric field. This delay is essentially governed by the collection time which is also dependant on the size, geometry of the detector. This signal is amplified and shaped to achieve an optimal signal-to-noise ratio. Before being digitized and recorded. A basic counting system is illustrated below:

Lecture Note: Nuclear Measurement I

UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata

Nuclear Detection and Measurements

Various detectors used routinely used are:

Gas Counters: A gas chamber filled with a chosen gas acts as the detecting medium. The ions formed due to the interaction of radiation with the gas are collected at the two electrodes. The electric current is directly proportional to the energy of the incident radiation. The average energy lost by the incident particle per ion pair created is substantially greater than the ionization energy and is also relatively independent of the gas used. The created ion-pair has a tendency to recombine, which could be minimized by the application of an electric field to separate & collect the ion pairs formed.

Geiger Mueller detector is an example of gas filled detector operating at high voltages, which essentially counts the number of incident radiation. Scintillation Detectors: The interaction of radiation with some materials produce a flash of light This flash of light has all the information of the radiation: its energy & relative time of occurrence. One method is by using a scintillator - photomultiplier combination which is much more convenient than the ZnS screen used by Rutherford. The charged particles or gamma-rays produce optical photons in the scintillator. The photons emit electrons from the photo cathode of the photo-multiplier tube. The electrons get multiplied a million times inside the tube and produce electrical pulses at the anode.

Lecture Note: Nuclear Measurement I

UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata

Nuclear Detection and Measurements

A scintillation material should have the following properties: It should be able to convert the kinetic energy of the charged particle into detectable light with high efficiency. The light yield should be proportional to the deposited energy. Medium should be transparent to the wavelength of its own emission for good light collection. The decay time of induced luminescence should be short so as to allow for efficient use for time measurements. The scintillators are used in conjunction with Photo-Multiplier Tubes and hence the coupling of these two is very crucial for the performance of the detector. The scinitllator is coupled with to the PMT using Silicon oil which has the same refractive index as that of the scintillator. At times a waveshifter is used to absorb light and reradiate it at a different wavelength to match the spectra sensitivity of the PMT. To detect the fast scintillation component of BaF 2 for example, it is necessary to use a PMT with quartz window since glass absorbs all light below 280 nm. It should be noted that PMTs are sensitive to magnetic fields; a -metal shield provides adequate protection from the earth magnetic field Scintillation detectors usually employ a Voltage Divider (VD) network to operate the PMT. This sometimes called "bleeder network" defines a potential (voltage) difference between the cathode, dynodes and anode of the PMT It is possible to operate a photomultiplier tube in two ways: Anode at positive potential (cathode at ground) Anode at ground (cathode at negative potential).

Lecture Note: Nuclear Measurement I

UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata

Nuclear Detection and Measurements For measurements of DC anode current such as in some X-ray applications, option B is the only choice since in the first option the anode must be separated from the follow-up electronics by means of a high voltage capacitor. On the other hand, option A is used for most standard applications since the m-metal shield should be preferably at cathode potential. Option A implies that cathode, detector mass (ground) and shield are all connected together. In option B, the shield must be very well insulated from the detector mass and special construction requirements apply. Negative high voltage is required for some fast timing applications where the possibility of discharges between the cathode of the PMT and the -shield are to be avoided. These PMTs are operated at more than 2 kV for fast response. Semiconductor detectors: Mobile electrons and holes are formed by the radiation and these move under the influence of the electric field in the junction. Usually the detectors are operated under reverse bias, and under completely depleted conditions. This ensures that the electronhole pairs are created only under the influence of the energy deposited by the incident radiation. The time required for a charge carrier to traverse the sensitive volume of the detector and essentially governs the timing properties of the detector.

Lecture Note: Nuclear Measurement I

UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata

Nuclear Detection and Measurements The major advantage of these detectors is their inherent superior energy resolution, this is essentially to the large number of electron-hole pairs created, since the energy required for the pair formation is very low ~ eV.

The operational principle of the semiconductor detector is summarized below:

Lecture Note: Nuclear Measurement I

UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata

Nuclear Detection and Measurements

Digitization and Storage of Pulse Heights

The Multi-channel analyzer comprises of a Analog-to-Digital Converter and a memory unit. The ADC converts the analog pulse amplitude to an equivalent digital number and then it is stored in an appropriate memory location. Digitization incurs an approximation as a continuous signal distribution is transformed into discrete values. To minimize the errors during this digitization, the discrete digital steps must correspond to a sufficiently large analog increment. Resolution is defined by the number of output bits i.e for a 8k ADC, i.e 8192 channels, 0V and 10 V would correspond respectively to 0 and 8192 channels i.e 10V/8192 channels ~ 0.001 V/chl. If one were to use 1k ADC (1024 channels), then the corresponding number would be 0.01 V/chl. Hence the choice of the ADC is essentially governed by the inherent detector resolution. Scintillators have typically 10% resolution at 600 keV, hence a 1K ADC should be sufficient, whereas for a semiconductor detector minimum of 4k ADC are required. However, the conversion time increases logarithmically with the number of channels. An ideal ADC should have the following response

Theoretically all the counts of a peak should fall in one bin, but in reality the channel profile is not rectangular, due to the smearing of the electronic noise. Hence, the following profile is obtained:

Lecture Note: Nuclear Measurement I

UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata

Nuclear Detection and Measurements

Detector resolution:
The shape of the peak is to a very good approximation described by a Gaussian function. The mean of this Gaussian corresponds to the energy of the gamma ray while the width of the Gaussian tells us something about how precisely the NaI detector measures the energy of the gamma ray. The standard definition of energy resolution (R) is:
R= Full Width Half Maximum Position of Peak

For a Gaussian distribution the position of the peak = mean, and Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM) is related to the standard deviation () by FWHM=2.36.

Lecture Note: Nuclear Measurement I

UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata

Nuclear Detection and Measurements

At times quantitative analysis is to be undertaken from the recorded spectra. For this routinely counts under the peak are to be estimated. It is obtained as indicated below:

Lecture Note: Nuclear Measurement I

UGC-DAE CSR, Kolkata