Nuclear Spectroscopy

Brett Schuessler
Unveristy of Hawaii at Manoa
Physics 480L: Tom Browder
brettsch@hawaii.edu
This lab studied emission spectra of two radioactive sources: 60 Co and 137 Cs. The 1.17 MeV -ray
Compton Edge for 60 Co was found to be (0.952 0.017) MeV - within 1 of the calculated value of
0.96 MeV. The Compton Edge for the 0.662 MeV photon released in 137 Cs was found to be (0.44
0.015) MeV - almost 3 from the calculated value of 0.477 MeV. The absorption coefficients, , for
Aluminum and Lead were experimentally verified well with values given by the National Institutes
of Science and Technology (NIST), results are given in Tables I and II.

INTRODUCTION

Nuclear spectroscopy, also known as gamma ray

spectroscopy, is the analytical technique used to determine frequency and energy distribution of high
energy photons released by radioactive sources during the process of decay. The visual character of
emission spectra plots are dominated by three effects: 1) The large number of counts in the low energy region is a product of the photoelectric effect,
2) The plateau in the middle is due to the distribution of energies from the photons scattered within
the scintillator through the Compton effect, and 3)
The large peaks in the higher energy region are the
photopeaks the X-rays emitted through the decay process and detected by the scintillator without
any intermediary interactions causing energy loss.
In addition, although not important for the sources
used in this lab, for photon decays above 1.22 MeV
(soft gamma rays), electron anti-electron pairs may
be produced this mechanism of pair production
begins to dominate other effects in the limit of high
energy photon decays.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

The radioactive decay chains of 60 Co and 137 Cs

isotopes produce photons with quantized energies.
Using an inorganic crystal scintillator, we can determine their respective emission spectra with high
energy resolution.
The Compton effect is the scattering of a photon
with energy E off of an electron, producing a new
photon with energy E0 at an angle from the initial
photon incidence. The relation between the incident
and product photon energies, derived from conser-

vation in relativistic momentum, is given by:

E0 =

E
1 + (1 cos)E /me c2

(1)

The amount of energy detected by the scintillator

when the scattered photon escapes, E = E E0
is at a maximum when = 180 , giving a maximum
possible detected energy in the scintillator through
the Compton effect:

Emax =

2E2
me c2 + 2E

(2)

This energy transfer limitation gives rise to the

effect of the Compton Edge the sharp drop off of
events detected by the scintillator of a higher energy
than Emax .
When absorbers are placed between the source
and detector, the photon intensity seen at the detector falls off exponentially as a function of distance
for a material of uniform attenuation:
I(x) = Io ex

(3)

Where is the absorption coefficient a function

of both absorber material and photon energy.

EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE

The schematic for the experiment is presented in

Figure 1. The detected event energy was first calibrated to the appropriate channels within the MCA
by removing any absorbers and matching the photopeaks within the emission spectra obtained using the

MAESTRO program to the known -decay chains of

60
Co and 137 Cs[1].

FIG. 2: Conflicting energy calibration results for

60
Co emission spectra
FIG. 1: Experiment: 1) Radioactive Source, 2)
Absorber, 3) NaI crystal scintillator, 4) PMT, 5)
Pre-Amplifier, 6) Amplifier, 7) Multi-Channel
Analyzer (MCA), 8) MAESTRO program
Following the calibration, metal absorbers (Al and
Pb) of varying cross-sectional width were placed between the source and the scintillator. The relative
photon intensity was obtained by numerically integrating the area under each photopeak within the
MAESTRO program with I0 proportional to the
area obtained under the photopeaks without any absorbers.

Energy Calibration

FIG. 3: 60 Co Pb spectra. Note that the

chronological order of data taken: 17mm, 6.4mm,
then 0mm

Energy Calibration to MCA channel number using the initial calibration data from the first day of
experiment proved to be drastically different from
the baseline data with no absorbers in place taken
on the second day - despite an attempt to match the
amplifier gain between the two lab sessions (Figure
2). In addition, for reasons postulated in a later section, the energy-channel correspondence undergoes
an apparent shift towards lower channel numbers
with continued equipment operation (note Figures
3, 4).
In spite of this drift, the difference in channel numbers between features of known energy appears to be
constant. Therefore, for the purposes of absorption

coefficient determination, the average channel difference between the two 60 Co photopeaks (for each absorber thicknesses) was used to calibrate the MCA
channel energy. By averaging the 60 Co photopeak
channel values in both the case of Aluminum and
Lead (Figures 7, 8 and Figures 9, 10, respectively)
and taking their difference, we obtain the channel
energy width to be (842 58) eV.
This same energy calibration was used for the
137
Cs data because a) Cesium only has one photopeak which precludes this process, and b) the data
for both sources was taken within one lab session
with all the same gain settings.

ANALYSIS

FIG. 4: 60 Co Al spectra. Note the chronological

order of data taken: 12mm, 33mm, 54mm, 0mm,
then 42mm

60

FIG. 6: 60 Co Compton Edge fit for 1.17 MeV

photopeak with Lead absorbers

Co Compton Edge Analysis

The Compton edges fit to asymmetric gaussians

for each absorber thickness are displayed for Aluminum (Figure 5) and Lead (Figure 6).

FIG. 7:

60

Co Al absorbers 1.17 MeV peak fits

Averaging all the differences between each Compton Edge fit channel number and the 1.17 MeV photopeak channel for each absorber thickness gives an
experimental energy value for the Compton Edge at
(0.952 0.017) MeV - within 1 of the calculated
value of 0.96 MeV.

FIG. 5: 60 Co Compton Edge fit for 1.17 MeV

photopeak with Aluminum absorbers

137

Although both the 1.17 MeV and 1.33 MeV rays have their own associated Compton Edges - the
Compton Edge from the 1.33 MeV -ray is located
at 1.12 MeV, too close in energy to the 1.17 MeV
photopeak to resolve using fitting. Therefore our
analysis regards only the Compton Edge from the
1.17 MeV -ray located at 0.96 MeV.

Cs Compton Edge Analysis

The data taken for 137 Cs was considerably sharper

and more consistent than that taken for 60 Co. In
light of this, the Compton Edge fitting was done for
a single data set only, shown in Figure 11.
Using the energy calibration of (842 58) eV per
3

FIG. 8:

60

Co Al absorbers 1.33 MeV peak fits

FIG. 10:

FIG. 11:
FIG. 9:

60

60

Co Pb absorbers 1.33 MeV peak fits

137

Cs Compton Edge fit, no absorber

Co Pb absorbers 1.17 MeV peak fits

Absorption Coefficient Analysis

For the experimental determination of the absorption coefficient, , the photopeak height counts
obtained from the asymmetric gaussian fit were
used as relative intensity values for the relation
shown in Equation 3.
Although the intensity
would be more accurately captured by integrating
the photopeak - the lack of a systematic way to
proceed about picking bounds of integration leads
to a lack of independent reproducibility in results,
and therefore the photopeak height method was
chosen instead. The linear fits to log peak height
data for Aluminum is graphed in Figure 12 and
the experimental values for displayed in Table 1.
The same for Lead is shown in Figure 13 and Table 2.

channel, we obtain an experimental Compton Edge

for 137 Cs at (0.44 0.015) MeV - almost 3 from
the calculated value of 0.477 MeV. This discrepancy
is most likely due to experimental error, specifically
poor correspondence with the 60 Co energy calibration, as the 137 Cs data is relatively unambiguous
and should have excellent results. A sanity check
was performed on the channel spacing between the
0.662 MeV photopeak and the Compton Edge for all
absorber data sets, and the channel difference from
the fit is closely matched in all cases, further giving
cause for attributing the poor results to incorrect energy calibration for this portion of the experiment.
4

CONCLUSION

Using amplified signals from an inorganic crystal

(NaI) scintillator- PMT apparatus placed above radioactive sources 60 Co and 137 Cs, we were able to fit
and compare to theory: both photopeaks (1.17 MeV
and 1.33 MeV) and one Compton Edge (0.96 MeV)
from the 60 Co spectral data, and the 0.662 MeV photopeak and its corresponding Compton Edge from
the 137 Cs spectra. The data corresponded well with
theoretical expectations, all within 1, with the partial exception of the 137 Cs Compton Edge fit.
FIG. 12: Absorption coefficient for Al: linear fits

FIG. 13: Absorption coefficient for Pb: linear fits

Energy
exp
0.662 MeV 0.182 0.017
1.17 MeV 0.146 0.015
1.33 MeV 0.137 0.015

N IST
0.19
0.16
0.14

TABLE I: Absorption coefficient for Aluminum,

note NIST coefficients are given as approximations
between discrete values given
Energy
exp
0.662 MeV 1.07 0.05
1.17 MeV 0.69 0.05
1.33 MeV 0.67 0.04

N IST
1.20
0.74
0.63

TABLE II: Absorption coefficient for Lead, note

NIST coefficients are given as approximations
5
between discrete values given

As stated in the Energy Calibration section, there

were considerable difficulties in getting an accurate
energy calibration. The method employed produced
acceptable results for the 60 Co Compton Edge fit,
but failed to accurately describe the 137 Cs Compton
Edge with any significance. Due to the fact that the
only major experimental difference between the two
sources was a large absolute channel separation between the photopeaks, this discrepancy in accuracy
points to a non-linearity in channel energy width as
analyzed by the MCA. Although it did not affect the
data for this lab, there appears to be an issue with
the prolonged operation of the experimental setup
causing constant energy data to shift towards lower
channel numbers (seen in Figures 3, 4).

The non-linearity in channel energy width and this

shift in absolute channel energy with time suggest
that perhaps the true gain from the amplification
device(s) is somewhat temperature dependent and
has a slight dependence on raw signal energy.

[1] National Institutes of Science and Technology,

X-Ray Mass Attenuation Coefficients,
http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/XrayMassCoef/tab3.html.