Gamma Spectroscopy

The detection of ionizing radiation by the scintillation light produced in a sodium iodide crystal allows us to detect gamma rays from a source and bin them according to energy. This is a big deal. At the end of this experiment you should know about gamma ray spectroscopy, scintillation detectors, and photomultiplier tubes.

The walkthrough videos are below.

The experimental procedures are in the manual here:

Gamma_Spectroscopy_Simplified.pdf, and the following list references the experiments in it.

Here are your jobs:

1 Calibrate the spectrometer. Experiment 1, Page 7

2 Gamma Spectra from Common Commercial Sources. Experiment 2, Page 10

2 Compton Scattering  Experiment 4,Page 14

3 Pair production  Experiment 5, Page 17

4 Multichannel Scaling and Half-life measurement of Indium. ,  Experiment 8 Page 24.b Ask your professor for an indium sample

The manual for the equipment is here:

UCS30_manual.pdf