A Geiger counter is an instrument used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation. Also known as a Geiger–Muller counter, it is widely used in applications such as radiation dosimetry, radiological protection, experimental physics, and the nuclear industry.
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is the emission of characteristic "secondary" X-rays from a material that has been excited by being bombarded with high-energy X-rays or gamma rays. The phenomenon is widely used for elemental analysis and chemical analysis, particularly in the investigation of metals, glass, ceramics and building materials, and for research in geochemistry, forensic science, archaeology and art objects such as paintings
A phosphor is a substance that exhibits the phenomenon of luminescence; it emits light when exposed to some type of radiant energy. The term is used both for fluorescent or phosphorescent substances which glow on exposure to ultraviolet or visible light, and cathodoluminescent substances which glow when struck by an electron beam in a cathode ray tube.
A scintillation counter is an instrument for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation by using the excitation effect of incident radiation on a scintillating material, and detecting the resultant light pulses.
A scintillator is a material that exhibits scintillation, the property of luminescence, when excited by ionizing radiation. Luminescent materials, when struck by an incoming particle, absorb its energy and scintillate. Sometimes, the excited state is metastable, so the relaxation back down from the excited state to lower states is delayed. The process then corresponds to one of two phenomena: delayed fluorescence or phosphorescence. The correspondence depends on the type of transition and hence the wavelength of the emitted optical photon.
A semiconductor detector in ionizing radiation detection physics is a device that uses a semiconductor to measure the effect of incident charged particles or photons.
A gamma camera (γ-camera), also called a scintillation camera or Anger camera, is a device used to image gamma radiation emitting radioisotopes, a technique known as scintigraphy. The applications of scintigraphy include early drug development and nuclear medical imaging to view and analyse images of the human body or the distribution of medically injected, inhaled, or ingested radionuclides emitting gamma rays.
A gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS) is an instrument for measuring the distribution of the intensity of gamma radiation versus the energy of each photon. The study and analysis of gamma-ray spectra for scientific and technical use is called gamma spectroscopy, and gamma-ray spectrometers are the instruments which observe and collect such data. Because the energy of each photon of EM radiation is proportional to its frequency, gamma rays have sufficient energy that they are typically observed by counting individual photons.
HEAO-1 was an X-ray telescope launched in 1977. HEAO-1 surveyed the sky in the X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, providing nearly constant monitoring of X-ray sources near the ecliptic poles and more detailed studies of a number of objects by observations lasting 3–6 hours. It was the first of NASA's three High Energy Astronomy Observatories, HEAO 1, launched August 12, 1977 aboard an Atlas rocket with a Centaur upper stage, operated until 9 January 1979. During that time, it scanned the X-ray sky almost three times
The Chicago Air Shower Array (CASA) was a significant ultra high high-energy astrophysics experiment operating in the 1990's. It consisted of a very large array of scintillation detectors located at Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, USA, approximately 80 kilometers southwest of Salt Lake City. The full CASA detector, consisting of 1089 detectors began operating in 1992 in conjunction with a second instrument, the Michigan Muon Array (MIA), under the name CASA-MIA. MIA was made of 2500 square meters of buried muon detectors. At the time of its operation, CASA-MIA was the most sensitive experiment built to date in the study of gamma ray and cosmic ray interactions at energies above 100 TeV (1014 electronvolts). Research topics on data from this experiment covered a wide variety of physics issues, including the search for gamma rays from Galactic sources (especially the Crab Nebula and the X-ray binaries Cygnus X-3 and Hercules X-1) and extragalactic sources (active Galactic nuclei and gamma-ray bursts), the study of diffuse gamma-ray emission (an isotropic component or from the Galactic plane), and measurements of the cosmic ray composition in the region from 100 to 100,000 TeV. For the topic of composition, CASA-MIA worked in conjunction with several other experiments at the same site: the Broad Laterial Non-imaging Cherenkov Array (BLANCA), the Dual Imaging Cherenkov Experiment (DICE) and the Fly's Eye HiRes prototype experiment. CASA-MIA operated continuously between 1992 and 1999. In summer 1999, it was decommissioned.
Yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG, Y3Al5O12) is a synthetic crystalline material of the garnet group. It is a cubic yttrium aluminium oxide phase, with other examples being YAlO3 (YAP) in a hexagonal or an orthorhombic, perovskite-like form, and the monoclinic Y4Al2O9 (YAM).
Gamma-ray spectroscopy is the quantitative study of the energy spectra of gamma-ray sources, such as in the nuclear industry, geochemical investigation, and astrophysics.
Neutron detection is the effective detection of neutrons entering a well-positioned detector. There are two key aspects to effective neutron detection: hardware and software. Detection hardware refers to the kind of neutron detector used and to the electronics used in the detection setup. Further, the hardware setup also defines key experimental parameters, such as source-detector distance, solid angle and detector shielding. Detection software consists of analysis tools that perform tasks such as graphical analysis to measure the number and energies of neutrons striking the detector.
Cadmium tungstate (CdWO4 or CWO), the cadmium salt of tungstic acid, is a dense, chemically inert solid which is used as a scintillation crystal to detect gamma rays. It has density of 7.9 g/cm3 and melting point of 1325 °C. It is toxic if inhaled or swallowed. Its crystals are transparent, colorless, with slight yellow tint. It is odorless. Its CAS number is 7790-85-4. It is not hygroscopic.
DEAP is a direct dark matter search experiment which uses liquid argon as a target material. DEAP utilizes background discrimination based on the characteristic scintillation pulse-shape of argon. A first-generation detector (DEAP-1) with a 7 kg target mass was operated at Queen's University to test the performance of pulse-shape discrimination at low recoil energies in liquid argon. DEAP-1 was then moved to SNOLAB, 2 km below Earth's surface, in October 2007 and collected data into 2011.
Gadolinium oxysulfide (Gd2O2S), also called gadolinium sulfoxylate, GOS or Gadox, is an inorganic compound, a mixed oxide-sulfide of gadolinium. Its CAS number is 12339-07-0.
Nuclear MASINT is one of the six major subdisciplines generally accepted to make up Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT), which covers measurement and characterization of information derived from nuclear radiation and other physical phenomena associated with nuclear weapons, reactors, processes, materials, devices, and facilities. Nuclear monitoring can be done remotely or during onsite inspections of nuclear facilities. Data exploitation results in characterization of nuclear weapons, reactors, and materials. A number of systems detect and monitor the world for nuclear explosions, as well as nuclear materials production.
Survey meters in radiation protection are hand-held ionising radiation measurement instruments used to check such as personnel, equipment and the environment for radioactive contamination and ambient radiation. The hand-held survey meter is probably the most familiar radiation measuring device owing to its wide and visible use.
Total absorption spectroscopy is a measurement technique that allows the measurement of the gamma radiation emitted in the different nuclear gamma transitions that may take place in the daughter nucleus after its unstable parent has decayed by means of the beta decay process. This technique can be used for beta decay studies related to beta feeding measurements within the full decay energy window for nuclei far from stability.
X-ray detectors are devices used to measure the flux, spatial distribution, spectrum, and/or other properties of X-rays.
