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Wide energy region efficiency calibration study of a prompt gamma activation analysis facility

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Abstract

A new prompt gamma activation analysis facility has been established using the China Mianyang Research Reactor (CMRR) to enable high-precision measurement and analysis of elements. The efficiency calibration of detection system is a vital factor affecting the accuracy. In this work, Monte Carlo method with accurate modeling was utilized to simulate the absolute detection efficiency of HPGe γ spectrometer covering a wide energy range of 81 keV to 10 MeV. A combination of various standard radioactive sources and nuclear reactions on the cold neutron beams was employed to experimentally measure the absolute detection efficiency of HPGe and anti-Compton systems in a wide energy region. The results show that the experimental results are in good agreement with the simulation results, and the absolute detection efficiency curves of the three are consistent. The content of H element in NH4Cl and Zr alloy samples was accurately measured by the efficiency function, which further verifies the accuracy of the efficiency calibration. A method of combining Monte Carlo simulation and experiment was used to improve the measurement accuracy for samples with complex geometries.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 12205271, U20B2011, 12075217 and 51978218) and Sichuan Science and Technology Program (Grant No. 2019ZDZX0010).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Nuclear Physics and Chemistry, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Mianyang, 621900, China

    Yuhua Ma, Hang Li, Xin Yang, Rundong Li & Hongwen Huang

  2. School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230027, China

    Yuhua Ma & Hongli Chen

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  1. Yuhua Ma
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  2. Hang Li
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  3. Xin Yang
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  4. Rundong Li
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Correspondence to Xin Yang.

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Ma, Y., Li, H., Yang, X. et al. Wide energy region efficiency calibration study of a prompt gamma activation analysis facility. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 332, 4009–4018 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-023-09097-8

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