Home Contents Glossary Search Help

Interactions with surroundings
Previous Up Next

 

In any practical application, a detector used for gamma-ray spectroscopy will be surrounded by other materials which contribute to its response. These materials are potential sources of secondary radiation, produced via interactions of the gamma-ray photons emitted from the source. The contributions arise from:
  • Photoelectric absorption;
  • Compton scattering; and
  • Pair production in the surrounding material.

If the secondary radiations reach the detector they can influence the shape of the recorded spectrum to a noticeable extent.

This section contains the following topics:

Interactions in shielding
Graded shield
Backscattered peaks
Pair production in shielding
Real size detectors
Questions

 

The University of Liverpool
© 1999, 2000 The University of Liverpool, Department of Physics

EPSRCProject funded by The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Materials Teaching Educational ResourcesWebsite developed and maintained by the MATTER Project