• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
• /
• v.31 no.4
• /
• pp.317-323
• /
• 2014

Odyssey, one of the NASA's Mars exploration program and SELENE (Kaguya), a Japanese lunar orbiting spacecraft have a payload of Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) for analyzing radioactive chemical elements of the atmosphere and the surface. In these days, gamma-ray spectroscopy with a High-Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector has been widely used for the activity measurements of natural radionuclides contained in the soil of the Earth. The energy spectra obtained by the HPGe detectors have been generally analyzed by means of the Window Analysis (WA) method. In this method, activity concentrations are determined by using the net counts of energy window around individual peaks. Meanwhile, an alternative method, the so-called Full Spectrum Analysis (FSA) method uses count numbers not only from full-absorption peaks but from the contributions of Compton scattering due to gamma-rays. Consequently, while it takes a substantial time to obtain a statistically significant result in the WA method, the FSA method requires a much shorter time to reach the same level of the statistical significance. This study shows the validation results of FSA method. We have compared the concentration of radioactivity of $^{40}K$, $^{232}Th$ and $^{238}U$ in the soil measured by the WA method and the FSA method, respectively. The gamma-ray spectrum of reference materials (RGU and RGTh, KCl) and soil samples were measured by the 120% HPGe detector with cosmic muon veto detector. According to the comparison result of activity concentrations between the FSA and the WA, we could conclude that FSA method is validated against the WA method. This study implies that the FSA method can be used in a harsh measurement environment, such as the gamma-ray measurement in the Moon, in which the level of statistical significance is usually required in a much shorter data acquisition time than the WA method.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.5
• /
• pp.1718-1733
• /
• 2023

The virtual Frisch-grid method for room-temperature radiation detectors has been widely used because of its simplicity and high performance. Recently, side electrodes were separately attached to each surface of the detectors instead of covering the entire detector surface with a single electrode. The side-electrode structure enables the measurement of the three-dimensional (3D) gamma-ray interaction in the detector. The positional information of the interaction can then be utilized to precisely calibrate the response of the detector for gamma-ray spectroscopy and imaging. In this study, we developed a 3D position-sensitive 5 × 5 × 12 mm³ cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) detector and applied a flattening method to correct detector responses. Collimated gamma-rays incident on the surface of the detector were scanned to evaluate the positional accuracy of the detection system. Positional distributions of the radiation interactions with the detector were imaged for quantitative and qualitative evaluation. The energy spectra of various radioisotopes were measured and improved by the detector response calibration according to the calculated positional information. The energy spectra ranged from 59.5 keV (emitted by ²⁴¹Am) to 1332 keV (emitted by ⁶⁰Co). The best energy resolution was 1.06% at 662 keV when the CZT detector was voxelized to 20 × 20 × 10.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
• /
• v.14 no.12
• /
• pp.1113-1117
• /
• 2005

Gamma-ray treatment was used to exterminate nematodes, which were harmful to agriculture When gamma-ray at the dose range of $5\~75$ kGy was irradaidated, nematodes were reduced by $40\~50\%$ When irradiated over 30 kGy, almost nematodes were non-mobile and fluorochromatic reactions showed that $60\;\~80\%$ of nematodes with non-mobility died after irradiation. The results of electron spin resonance spectroscopy suggested that radicals generated by radiolysis could damage to nematodes.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.55 no.12
• /
• pp.4671-4677
• /
• 2023

For the first time Pb, Ni, and Cu nanocomposites were synthesized by versatile solution combustion synthesis using Aloevera extract as a reducing agent, to study the potential applications in X-ray/gamma, neutron, and Bremsstrahlung shielding. The synthesized Lead-Nickel-Copper (LNC) nanocomposites were characterized by PXRD, SEM, UV-VIS, and FTIR for the confirmation of successful synthesis. PXRD analysis confirmed the formation of multiphase LNC NCs and the Scherrer equation and the W-H plot gave the average crystal sizes of 19 nm and 17 nm. Surface morphology using SEM and EDX confirmed the presence of LNC NCs. Strong absorption peaks were analyzed by UV visible spectroscopy and the direct energy gap is found to be 3.083 eV. Functional groups present in the LNC NCs were analyzed by FTIR spectroscopy. X-ray/gamma radiation shielding properties were measured using NaI(Tl) detector coupled with MCA. It is found to be very close to Pb. Neutron shielding parameters were compared with traditional shielding materials and found LNC NCs are better than lead and concrete. Secondary radiation shielding known as Bremsstrahlung shielding characteristics also studied and found that LNC NCs are best in secondary radiation shielding. Hence LNC NCs find shielding applications in ionizing radiation such as X-ray/gamma and neutron radiation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Radioactive Waste Society Conference
• /
• 2010.10a
• /
• pp.277-278
• /
• 2010

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.133-138
• /
• 2018

The measurement of gamma-ray spectrum of $^{nat}W(p,xn)$ reaction with natural tungsten were performed by using a high energy proton generated from a 100-MeV proton linear accelerator of the Korea Multi-purpose Accelerator Complex (KOMAC). Gamma rays generated by various nuclides generated through the nuclide were measured using a gamma-ray spectroscopy system composed of HPGe detector. A gamma-ray standard source was used for energy calibration and efficiency measurement of the detector. Analysis of the gamma rays observed in the measured spectra showed that the radionuclides produced were $^{167}Re$, $^{178}Re$, $^{179}Re$, $^{180}Re$, $^{181}Re$, $^{182}Re$, $^{184}Re$, $^{172}Ta$, $^{174}Ta$, $^{178}Ta$, $^{182}Ta$, $^{184}Ta$, $^{175}W$, $^{176}W$, $^{177}W$ and $^{179}W$. Nuclides were generated. The results of this study will be applied to nuclear fusion, astrophysics, and nuclear medicine applications in the future.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.97-104
• /
• 2004

Neutron induced prompt gamma-ray spectroscopy(NIPS) system measures the prompt gamma-ray emitting by the interaction of a neutron with various materials. This system will be of great benefit to scientists worldwide, since it provides the non-destructive measurement of many element in either solid or liquid wastes. In this study, the full-energy-peak (FEP) efficiency calibration for a HPGe detector was constructed in the ${\gamma}$-ray energy range from 80 keV to 8 MeV, using $^{l33}$Ba and >TEX>$^{152}Eu$ RI sources and $ ^{35}Cl(n, ${\gamma}$)^{36}Cl$ thermal neutron captured reaction. The FEP efficiency curve for the higher energies using the $^{35}Cl(n, ${\gamma}$)^{36}Cl$ reaction was normalized with the curve obtained from the RI sources, since the accurate activity of its prompt ${\gamma}$-ray is unknown. The average thermal neutron flux was theoretically calculated using the FEP efficiency curve for the KCl standard solutions. The NIPS system equipped with a ${\gamma}$-${\gamma}$ coincidence setup with two n-type coaxial HPGe detectors was considered in order to reduce the interfering ${\gamma}$-ray background. The FEP efficiency curve for the ${\gamma}$-${\gamma}$ coincidence system was also obtained for full energy range. The performance of the normal and coincidence NIPS system was tested by comparing signal-to-noise ratio in each mode using the reference sample.e.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.50 no.3
• /
• pp.462-469
• /
• 2018

The background spectrum of a $3^{{\prime}{\prime}}{\times}3^{{\prime}{\prime}}$ NaI(Tl) well-type scintillation SILENA detector was measured without shielding, in 6 cm thick lead shielding, and with 2 mm thick electrolytic copper covering the detector inside the lead shielding. The relative remaining background of the lead shield lined with copper was found to be ideal for low-level environmental radioactive spectroscopy. The background total count rate in the (20-2160 KeV) was reduced 28.7 times by the lead and 29 times by the Cu + Pb shielding. The effective reduction of background (1.04) by the copper mainly appeared in the energy range from X-ray up to 500 KeV, while for the total energy range the ratio is 1.01 relative to the lead only. In addition, a strong relation between the full-energy peak absolute efficiency and the detector well height was found using gamma-ray isotropic radiation point sources placed inside the detector well. The full-energy peak efficiency at a midpoint of the well (at 2.5 cm) is three times greater than that on the detector surface. The energy calibrations and the resolution of any single energy line are independent of the locations of the gamma source inside or outside of the well.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.48 no.3
• /
• pp.778-784
• /
• 2016

HyperGam-U was recently developed to determine uranium enrichment based on ${\gamma}$- and X-ray spectroscopy analysis. The $XK_{\alpha}$ region of the uranium spectrum contains 13 peaks for $^{235}U$ and $^{238}U$ and is used mainly for analysis. To describe the X-ray peaks, a Lorentzian broadened shape function was used, and methods were developed to reduce the number of fitting parameters for decomposing the strongly overlapping peaks using channel-energy, energy-width, and energy-efficiency calibration functions. For validation, eight certified reference material uranium samples covering uranium enrichments from 1% to 99% were measured using a high-resolution planar high-purity germanium detector and analyzed using the HyperGam-U code. When corrections for the attenuation and true coincidence summing were performed for the detection geometry in this experiment, the goodness of fit was improved by a few percent. The enrichment bias in this study did not exceed 2% compared with the certified values for all measured samples.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
• /
• v.13 no.5
• /
• pp.819-824
• /
• 2019

In this study, we proposed a method for identifying isotopes generated from high-energy proton $^{nat}Pb$(p,xn) nuclear reactions through the difference of gamma rays generated through nuclear reactions using different proton energies. The experiment was performed by using a high energy proton generated from a 100 MeV proton linear accelerator of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. Gamma rays generated by various nuclides generated through proton nuclear reactions were measured using a gamma-ray spectroscopy system composed of HPGe detectors. Gamma-ray standard sources were used for accurate energy calibration and efficiency measurements of HPGe gamma-ray detectors. For the proposed method, 100 and 60 MeV proton energy beams were used for the same natural lead samples. This method was found to be very effective in identifying nuclides produced by comparing gamma rays generated from the same sample with each other. The results of this study are expected to be very effective in obtaining other proton nuclear reaction results in the future.