Abstract
A comparison of special low-background germanium counting systems used at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory will be presented. These vary from specially modified instruments in the laboratory to low-cosmic-exposure detectors operated deep underground. The underground detectors have copper cryostats completely electroformed from low-background copper. Electroforming is a process analogous to zone refining in its ability to remove chemical impurities. Shielding techniques and their merit are compared as to difficulty and benefit. Active cosmic veto is directly compared to passive overburden shielding. Special attention is paid to cosmic activation of the cryostat and the germanium crystal itself.
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Operated for the U. S. Department of Energy by Battelle Memorial Institute under Contract DE-AC06-76RL0 1830.
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Miley, H.S., Brodzinski, R.L. & Reeves, J.H. Low-background counting systems compared. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Articles 160, 371–385 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02037112
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02037112