Detection Of Nuclear Radiation Pulse Height Spectra英文电子书.pdf

22.101 Applied Nuclear Physics (Fall 2004) Lecture 22 (12/1/04) Detection of Nuclear Radiation: Pulse Height Spectra _______________________________________________________________________ References: W. E. Meyerhof, Elements of Nuclear Physics (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1967), Sec.3-6. ________________________________________________________________________ We have just concluded the study of radiation interaction with matter in which the basic mechanisms of charged particle, neutron and gamma interactions were discussed separately. A topic which makes use of all this information is the general problem of detection of nuclear radiation detection. Although this subject properly belongs to a course dealing with experimental aspects applied nuclear physics, it is nevertheless appropriate to make contact with it at this point in the course. There are two reasons for this. First, radiation detection is a central part of the foundational knowledge for all students in the department of Nuclear Engineering (soon to be renamed Nuclear Science and Engineering). Even though we cannot do justice to it in view of the limited time remaining in the syllabus, it is worthwhile to make some contact with it, however briefly. Secondly, an analysis of the features observed experimentally in pulse-height spectra of gamma radiation is timely given what we have just learned about the γ -interaction processes of Compton scattering, photoelectric effect and pair production. We first remark that regardless of the type of nuclear radiation, the interactions taking place in a material medium invariably result in ionization and excitation which then can be detected. Heavy charged particles and electrons produce ion pairs in ionization chambers, or light emission (excitation of atoms) in scintillation counters, or electron-hole pairs in semiconductor detectors. Neut