A portable, photon analysis spectrometer for the assay of X- and gamma-ray emitting radionuclides

Abstract

A portable, battery-powered, multichannel analyzer (MCA) for use with Ge spectrometers has been developed for in-field use for the assay of x-and γ-ray emitting radionuclides. The spectrometer is capable of operating to rates greater than 150,000 counts per second. The analyzer is a Canberra InSpector MCA, that is equipped with the INEEL ultra-stable dual-energy pulser, and pulse injection with subsequent removal (PISR) circuitry. PCGAP, a set of MCA control and spectral analysis programs, was developed for use on a PC with a Windows NT Operating System. It includes an interactive peak analysis program as well as automatic spectral analysis programs for the X- and γ-ray regions, and a number of utility programs. The pulser peaks are calibrated with radioactive sources in terms of energy (i.e., their energy equivalents are measured) using the PCGAP spectral analysis package so that energy shifts, including those due to changes in temperature or count rate, do not cause a loss of energy calibration. The number of injected low- and high-energy-equivalent pulses is known so the stored pulser pulses can be used for a dead-time and random summing correction. The pulser peaks are also used to monitor any deterioration in spectral quality caused by noise, ground loops, etc. The results of performance tests to demonstrate the capabilities of this pulser-equipped InSpector are reported.