Feasibility of in situ beta ray measurements in underwater environment.

We describe an attempt at the development of an in situ detector for beta ray measurements in underwater environment. The prototype of the in situ detector is based on a CaF2: Eu scintillator using crystal light guide and Si photomultiplier. Tests were conducted using various reference sources for evaluating the linearity and stability of the detector in underwater environment. The system is simple and stable for long-term monitoring, and consumes low power. We show here an effective detection distance of 7 mm and a 2.273 MeV end-point energy spectrum of 90Sr/90Y when using the system underwater. The results demonstrate the feasibility of in situ beta ray measurements in underwater environment and can be applied for designing an in situ detector for radioactivity measurement in underwater environment. The in situ detector can also have other applications such as installation on the marine monitoring platform and quantitative analysis of radionuclides.

Remote radiation sensing module based on a silicon photomultiplier for industrial applications.

We have designed a silicon-photomultiplier-based remote radiation-sensing module consisting of a master port (displaying radiation information) and a slave port (detects radiation, transmits to master). The master port merges radiation and dose values and displays them. Counting detection efficiency and radiation response simulated using MCNPX were used to calibrate the module. We performed radioactive source tests ((137)Cs, (22)Na, (60)Co, (55)Fe) and compared experimental and simulation results. Remote detection capability was demonstrated and the detection accuracy was determined. Applications abound in the radioactivity industry.

Feasibility of a wireless gamma probe in radioguided surgery.

Radioguided surgery through the use of a gamma probe is an established practice, and has been widely applied in the case of sentinel lymph node biopsies. A wide range of intraoperative gamma probes is commercially available. The primary characteristics of the gamma probes include their sensitivity, spatial resolution, and energy resolution. We present the results obtained from a prototype of a new wireless gamma probe. This prototype is composed of a 20 mm thick cerium-doped gadolinium aluminum gallium garnet (Ce:GAGG) inorganic scintillation crystal from Furukawa Denshi and a Hamamatsu S12572-100C multi-pixel photon counter equipped with a designed electronics. The measured performance characteristics include the energy resolution, energy linearity, angular aperture, spatial resolution and sensitivity. Measurements were carried out using (57)Co, (133)Ba, (22)Na, and (137)Cs sources. The energy resolutions for 0.122 and 0.511 MeV were 17.2% and 6.9%, respectively. The designed prototype consumes an energy of approximately 4.4 W, weighs about 310 g (including battery) having a dimension of 20 mm (D) × 130 mm (L).

Development and Performance Characteristics of Personal Gamma Spectrometer for Radiation Monitoring Applications.

In this study, a personal gamma (γ) spectrometer was developed for use in applications in various fields, such as homeland security and environmental radiation monitoring systems. The prototype consisted of a 3 × 3 × 20 mm³ Ce-doped Gd-Al-Ga-garnet (Ce:GAGG) crystal that was coupled to a Si photomultiplier (SiPM) to measure γ radiation. The γ spectrometer could be accessed remotely via a mobile device. At room temperature, the implemented Ce:GAGG-SiPM spectrometer achieved energy resolutions of 13.5%, 6.9%, 5.8%, and 2.3% for (133)Ba at 0.356 MeV, (22)Na at 0.511 MeV, (137)Cs at 0.662 MeV, and (60)Co at 1.33 MeV, respectively. It consumed only about 2.7 W of power, had a mass of just 340 g (including the battery), and measured only 5.0 × 7.0 cm².

Defect study on polyaniline by positron annihilation spectrometry.

Fast coincidence system was constructed and applied to positron annihilation spectrometry (PAS). We studied on the factors that affected the time resolution of the system. Time resolutions were obtained and mutually compared with respect to several factors such as sizes, kinds of scintillators, length dependence of delay lines on the CFD583, and width variations of the windows for 511keV and 1.27MeV. Monoenergetic positron acceleration system was used to measure the lifetime components for the polyaniline, which have variable electric conductivity. We obtained 360-380ps as bulk lifetime for polyaniline, which intended to show that the higher the conductivity, the longer the bulk lifetime. The reasons were discussed in the context of the protonate H(+). The defect in the sample was discussed in the relation of positron lifetime corresponding to the variation of conductivity.