Gamma Ray Spectroscopy

Diptanil Roy1
1

National Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhubaneswar

(Dated: October 16, 2016)

This report describes the experimental procedure we used to understand the working of the NaI
detector. A Thallium activated NaI crystal scintillation detector was used to measure and calibrate
the Co60 spectrum. From there, the energy of the peaks of another source (Cs137 ) was found
out from its respective spectrum. Further, the efficiency of the detector the complete spectra of
the two sources Co60 and Cs137 was measured.The relation between the % resolution and E1/2
was plotted.The complete spectra of Co60 and Cs137 was recorded highlighting the various spectral
regions.The activity of Cs137 was calculated from subsequent measurements both theoretically and
via the spectrometer.All the spectral graphs and the corresponding data were obtained by using
Win-DASTM software.
I. INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this experiment is to analyze the

gamma-ray spectra of Co60 and Cs137 using a NaI scintillation detector. The experimental apparatus and its
working is described in the next section. The basic idea
of a scintillation detector is to allow the gamma ray photons to interact with the NaI crystal by various physical
processes giving rise to ultraviolet and optical (scintillation) photons. The typical spectrum for a monochromatic gamma source is shown in figure 1.

couple of specific functions. The first is to act as a

medium that will have a high probability that an incident gamma-ray will interact within that medium. The
second function of the detector is to accurately detect the
fast electrons that are created. This is where gamma-ray
spectrometer comes into play. In this case we are
using a Co60 source to calibrate the Cs137 source.Co60
undergoes decay in two steps as shown in the Figure 1 .
Similarly Cs137 also has its own decay scheme giving
out only one particle and Ba137

FIG. 1: Decay Scheme of Co60

Detecting X-rays and gamma-rays is not a direct process. X-ray and gamma-ray photons do not have an intrinsic charge and therefore do not create ionization or
excitation of the medium it is passing through directly.
Thus, the measurement of these photons is dependent on
their interaction with the electrons of the medium. The
incident photons will create fast electrons which we look
at to understand the nature the of photon itself. These
electrons will have a maximum energy that is equal to
the energy of the incident gamma-ray on that electron.
There are three manners in which the photon will interact with the medium that it is in,that is of concern for
gamma-ray spectroscopy. In a typical gamma ray spectra, one can find single(multiple) photopeaks corresponding to photoelectric absorption, Compton scattering, and
pair production. To characterize an unknown substance,
the photopeaks are considered important.
Because of the fact that the photons themselves are
invisible to the detector, a detector needs to have a

FIG. 2: Decay Scheme of Cs137

The major interactions detected are:

1. Photoelectric Absorption: The large peak at
the far right is called the photopeak and arises
when all the gamma ray energy is deposited in
the scintillator. The 5-10% width of this peak due
to statistical uctuations. The most likely interaction to deposit 100% of the gamma ray energy is
the photoelectric eect. The incident gamma essentially gives up all its energy to eject a bound inner
shell electron from one of the crystal atoms. The
ejected electron then has signicant kinetic energy
(the gamma ray energy less the small binding energy of the atomic electron, on the order of 10 keV)

2
and loses this energy by exciting and ionizing more
crystal atoms.
2. Compton Effect
(a) Compton Scattering: Compton scattering is
a purely kinematic scattering of an incident
gamma photon of energy E with an electron
(mass m) in the crystal that is either free or
loosely bound (Ee 0, pe 0). Using conservation of energy and momentum, it can be
shown that when the gamma photon is scattered through an angle , its nal energy E0 is
reduced to
E0 =

E
1 + (E /mc2 )(1 cos )

(1)

(b) Back Scattering:The small peak at low voltage (called the backscatter peak) arises when
gamma photons rst strike the lead shield and
then Compton scatter back into the detector. The scattered photons, which are greatly
reduced in energy, produce the backscatter
peak. The Compton plateauthe relatively
at region extending from the Compton edge
to lower energies occurs when gamma rays
Compton scatter in the scintillator. The recoiling electrons energy is deposited in the
crystal while the scattered photon exits the
crystal undetected. The recoil energy varies
from a maximum at the Compton edge when
the photon backscatters, to zero when the
photon is scattered in the forward direction.

enough energy, it annihilates with an electron producing two 0.511 MeV gammas. The creation, energy loss, and annihilation eectively occur instantaneously. If both annihilation gammas are absorbed, the total energy absorbed will be the original gamma energy and the event would contribute
to the photopeak. However, sometimes either or
both of the annihilation gammas will escape from
the crystal producing small peaks (called single or
double escape peaks) 0.511 MeV or 1.022 MeV below the photopeak. The conservation of energy
yields:
h = m0 c2 + E+ + E + Enuclear

(2)

where m0 c2 is the rest mass energy of the pair while

E+ ,E and Enuclear are the kinetic energies of the
positron, electron and nucleus, respectively. The
presence of the nucleus is essential for the conservation of linear momentum. The kinetic energy
of the pair is then (E-1.02) MeV (where E=h )
which is shared equally between the electron and
the positron which are stopped in the crystal. In
case both the photons are completely stopped in
the crystal one will get a full energy peak at E, as
in the case of photoelectric absorption. If one or
both gamma rays escape we get a corresponding
peak at energies E m0 c2 or E 2m0 c2

II. WORKING AND APPARATUS

For this experiment, we are using a standard GDM 10

detector.

FIG. 4: Block Diagram of the detector.

The apparatus used for gamma ray spectroscopy are:

FIG. 3: Standard pulse height spectra of a detector.

1. Thallium activated NaI detector with accessories.

3. Pair Production:In the strong electric elds near
crystal nuclei, a gamma ray can create an electronpositron pair as long as the gamma ray energy exceeds 1.022 MeV (the rest mass energy of an electron and positron). Any gamma energy in excess
of this becomes kinetic energy of the electron and
positron. This kinetic energy is quickly absorbed
in the crystal and when the positron gets to low

2. Amplifier with ADC.

3. Sources which radiated gamma rays.
4. Computer with Win-DASTM software for data acquisition.
The block diagram of a standard detector is as shown
in Fig Figure 4.

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Ideally, the cross-section area of a detector should be
large enough so that all the gamma ray interactions can
be recorded in it. However, gamma-rays often carry a lot
of energy and building a detector large enough to stop all
of them from escaping isnt always practical and sometimes just isnt feasible. So we do not get well-defined
sharp peaks as is expected theoretically. The gamma ray
interaction in a real life detector is as shown in Figure 5

FIG. 5: Gamma ray interaction in a detector.

A gamma ray detector consists of the following components:

1. Scintillation Gamma Ray Spectrometer:
This set up consists of thallium activated sodium
iodide crystal as a scintillator. The rays and other
ray fall on the crystal and generate flashes of light.
The photons so generated are transmitted into the
photo cathode where they emit electrons which are
amplified by the dynodes (10 in number). The resulting shower of electrons gives rise to an electric
pulse, whose amplitude is directly proportional to
the amount of light collected on the photo cathode
Figure 6, and thus directly proportional to the energy of the gamma radiation. By measuring the
amplitude, the energy of the corresponding gamma
quantum can be determined.

between the detector and the pulse processing and

the analysis electronics that follows. The preamplifier is generally located as close as possible to
the detector to maximize the signal to noise ratio.
It also serves as an impedance matcher presenting high impedance to the detector to minimize
loading, while providing a low impedance output
to drive succeeding components. It conventionally
provides no pulse shaping and its output is a linear
tail pulse with fast rise time and slow decay time.
3. Pulse height analyser and ADC: In this set up
the pulse height analysis is done by a multi channel
analyser (MCA). A modern multichannel analyzer
operation is based on the principle of counting an
analog signal (the pulse amplitude) to an equivalent
digital number.This is achieved via analog to digital converter (ADC).Once this conversion has been
accomplished the extensive technology available for
the storage and display of digital information can
be brought to bear on the problem of recording
pulse height spectra.The basic function of the MCA
involves the ADC memory and display.
The electric pulses from the PM tube are amplified in
the amplifier and then registered by the computer and
sorted into a histogram according to their amplitude.
Since the amplitude is proportional to the gamma energy, the histogram reproduces the energy distribution
of the detected gamma quanta. The analogue information (the amplitude) must be converted to suitable digital
information (binary number) for the computer. The electronic circuit which carries out the conversion is called an
A/D converter (Analog-to-Digital converter).The incoming pulses are read by the A/D converter, which makes
a classification, i.e. sorts the pulses into different boxes
(channels) according to their pulse height. The GDM 10
detector system uses an A/D converter with 1024 channels. The channels are numbered according to increasing
pulse height, and the channel number is thus proportional
to the gamma energy.
III. DATA AND TABULATION

1. Preset time for all graphs: 900s

2. Discriminator voltage (low): 50V
3. Accelerator voltage (high): 460V

FIG. 6: Amplification in the dynodes

2. Amplifier:The first element in a signal processing

chain is a preamplifier which provides an interface

A background spectra was taken before the use of radioactive sources Figure 7.
The background radiation was subsequently subtracted
from the spectra of radio active samples. Reference spectra was taken to be Co60 spectra. The complete spectra
(minus the background) (Counts vs Channel) is shown in
Figure 8.

FIG. 7: Background radiation spectra

FIG. 9: Count vs Energy Spectra of Co60

The count vs energy spectra of Co60 is given in Fig-

FIG. 10: Count vs channel Spectra of Cs137

FIG. 8: Complete Spectra of Co60

ure 9 The unknown soure to be characterised was Cs137 .

The following figures (Figure 10 and Figure 11) give the
Count vs channel(complete spectra minus background)
and the Count vs energy spectra of Cs137 respectively.
From the spectra one can see a distinct photo-electric
peak in the Cs spectra. The X-ray peak is not clearly
visible.
Ideally, the peaks should be a sharp line. However due
to limitations of the detector we get broader peaks. The
counts of the peak is the number of counts under the two
minima on either side of the peak(s).

a. Detector Resolution and its energy dependence

The term resolution denotes the degree of broadening

and is defined as the full width at half maximum divided
by the pulse height at the peak multiplied by 100.

%Resolution =

FWHM
x 100.
Energy at peak value

(3)

Consequently, lower the value, sharper is the line and

better is the resolution.

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where N(p) is the count under the photopeak and N(t)
is the total count in the spectrum.

TABLE II: Data for energy dependence on Photopeak Efficiency

E(MeV) Photopeak Count Total Count(%)
0.662
150730
276983
1.177
92659
989690
74461
989690
1.334

Ratio
0.54418
0.09362
0.07524

Ep %
54.418
9.362
7.524

FIG. 11: Count vs Energy Spectra of Cs137

TABLE I: Data for energy dependence of Resolution

1

Source FWHM(counts) Count E(M eV ) E 2 (MeV 2 ) Res(%)

Cs137
20.2
229.1 0.662
1.229
8.816
Co60
22.9
391.4 1.177
0.922
5.85
Co60
24.6
445.3 1.334
0.866
5.52

The graph of the relation is as shown in Figure 12

FIG. 13: Efficiency vs Energy

c. Calculation of Actvivity

Theoretical Calculation of Activity of the

samples:
N = N0 e0.693t/

(5)

where is the half life N0 is the initial activity and N is

the present activity. The following table gives the calculation.
Activity can also be determined from the spectrometer
FIG. 12: Resolution vs E1/2
TABLE III: Theoretical calculation of activity
Source
Cs137
Co60

b. Photopeak efficiency

Photopeak efficiency is given by:

Ep =

N (p)
N (t)

N0 (Ci)
0.25
1

Time(days)
2459
2377

(years)
30.18
5.27

N(Ci)
0.214
0.412

by the following relations.

(4)

N0 =

N
W Ep t

(6)

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where
1

d

1
2p
D
D = r 2 + d2

W =

(7)
(8)

No is the total number of disintegrations per second.W is

the solid angle subtended by the detector at the source,
Ep is the photopeak efficiency, and N are the observed
counts in the photopeak.
r is the radius of the NaI crystal=2.5cm
d is the source-detector spacing=5 cm
The preset time t=900s

the pulses in the full-energy peak will be shifted to

higher values; giving a large high-energy tailing of
the peak in the pulse height spectrum. This can be
reduced by using stable voltage source to prevent
fluctuations.
3. Deadtime error:ADC requires some time to process an incoming pulse. During this period, known
as the dead time of the instrument, it can not accept another pulse. This second pulse is therefore
lost. The dead time period for the two sources are:
Co60 : 1.32 %
Cs137 : 0.31 %

TABLE IV: Experimental calculation of activity from spectrometer

Source
Cs137
Co60
Co60

W(cm)
0.052786
0.052786
0.052786

N
150730
92659
74461

(Ep )
0.54418
0.09362
0.07524

N0 (Bq)
5830.268
20832.17
20832.17

N0 (Ci)
0.157
0.563
0.563

IV. ERROR ANALYSIS

Even though most of the data was taken by the machine , yet there is still scope of systematic error.
1. Statistical errors: Statistical counting errors in
gamma-ray spectroscopy follow a poisson distribution. This particular distribution has a property
that standard deviation is equal to square root of
the mean root count.

= n
(9)
Thus for Co60 whose total count is 989690 in 900s,
then the error in counts/s is:
n=33 counts/s.
for Cs137 whose total count is 276983 in 900s, then
the error in counts/s is:
n=18 counts/s.
2. Distortion in the pulse train due to Pile-up:
Relatively long pulse decay times are used in the
initial stages of the hardware to reduce distortions
due to electronic noise. At high counting rates
there is then a possibility that a second event in
the detector might occur before the pulse from the
previous event has decayed. The second pulse will
ride on the tail of the first one.
This effect is known as pulse pile-up, and will result in a measured pulse height value for the second
pulse that is higher than the true value. The end
result of pile-up in the pulse train is that some of

4. Limit of resolution: Since the detector cannot capture gamma rays of all the energies, the
peaks are not sharp but have some broadening due
to stray radiations.This is the limit of resolution.
Smaller is the value, sharper is the peak and better
the resolution. Better is the resolution, the specctra will be affected less by fluctuations in the environment (voltage, radiation etc.) From previous
calculation, the % Resolution for the various energy
peaks was found to be:
Co60 :
1.177 MeV: 5.85 %
1.334 MeV: 5.52 %
Cs137
0.662 MeV: 8.816 %
5. Background Noise: Background noise can also
contribute to the counts.However, in this experiment we have reduced background effect by subtracting the background noise from the spectra of
the source.

V. RESULTS

From the spectra of the two sources, we could

determine the X-ray peak (for Co60 ), backscattering
peak, compton edge and continuum, and the photopeaks.

1. The % resolution was found to be :

8.81 % for 0.662 MeV peak of the Cs spectra.
5.85 % for 1.177 MeV peak of the Co spectra.
5.52 % for 1.334 MeV peak of the Co spectra.

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2. The relation between resolution(%) and energy was
found to be:
1

R = 9.268E 2 2.509

MeV) can be detected by Pair telescopes and Air

Cerenkov Detectors.

(10)

This shows that, % Resolution is inversely

proportional to square root of energy.
3. The Photopeak efficiency for the sources was
also calculated:
54.418 % for 0.662 MeV peak of the Cs
spectra.
9.362 % for 1.177 MeV peak of the Co spectra.
7.524 % for 1.334 MeV peak of the Co spectra.
The photopeak efficiency seems to decrease with
the rise in energy.

8. In this spectrometer, we are using 1024 channels

to quantify energy. If 512 channels were used, then
the resolution would be poorer and gamma ray
energies cannot be recorded with greater accuracy
because the energies cannot be quantified precisely.
VI. CONCLUSION

The following inferences can be drawn from the experiment:

1. Both the resolution and detection efficiency of the
NaI crystal were found to decrease with increasing
energy.

0.412 Ci (calc) vs 0.563 Ci (expt) for

Co60 .

2. The spectra of a radioactive source consists not just

the photo peak/peaks but each of the photo peak is
in turn associated with a lower energy continuous
Compton distribution. In fact the two interaction
processes are many a times competitive and the fate
of a particular gamma photon is probabilistic. For
Co-60 we obtain a peak even after the 2nd photopeak which is a sum peak.

5. We should use multiple calibration peaks because

this can reduce the error by giving a more accurate
energy calibration. the error due to back ground
will be reduced. Radioactivity is a spontaneous and
random event. So it is always better to take multiple calibration peaks.

3. Because of lower gamma ray energy, Cs-137 is better detected through this process as compared to
Co-60. This is reflected in the lower value of resolution and higher value of efficiency of NaI crystal
at Cs-137s photopeak energy.

4. The calculated and experimental activities of Co

and Cs137 are as follows:

60

0.214 Ci (calc) vs 0.157 Ci (expt) for

Cs137 .

6. Many other scintillator detectors are also available

other than NaI(Tl) detectors. Sodium activated
cesium iodide (CsI(Na)) and silver activated
zinc sulphide(ZnS(Ag)) are two other commonly
used detectors. Further, highly pure germanium is
also used in advanced detectors.
7. ray detection is widely used in the field of astronomy. While compton scattering detects low energy rays(1-30 MeV), higher energy rays(> 30

[1] Gamma Ray Spectroscopy Lab Manual, NISER Physics

Lab
[2] Glenn F. Knoll. Radiation Detection and Measurement.Wiley, 2010
[3] Gilmore, G. (2011). Practical gamma-ray spectroscopy.
John Wiley and Sons.