Purpose
The purpose of this lab is to learn to operate a scintillator detector and recognize the peaks generated with its use.
Relevant Reading
Tsoulfanidis: Chapter 6, Chapter 9, Chapter 12 pages 389-398.
Knoll: Chapter 8, Chapter 9 pages 265-275 and Chapter 10 pages 307-323.
Equipment
You will need to bring a USB Jump Drive to save your Data on. You can not leave it on the lab computers.
Some of the data used to analyze the peaks is presented in a report that is difficult to export in an Excel format. A program has been written to strip out the counts data from the file generated by the Genie 2000 software. This program is called datafltr. The code and a brief instruction sheet will be posted to Blackboard. If you wish, feel free to use this program to help streamline the process of analyzing the data.
Basic Setup
An NaI Detector with PM tube will be provided. The detector will be hooked up to a Multichannel Analyzer (MCA).
Please note that the detector will be using a high-voltage power supply provided by the MCA card. The voltage, which may be set through the MCA software interface, should be set at around 750 volts. The voltage is based on the type of detector and can range from 750 to 1100 volts, ask your lab instructor which voltage is correct for your detector. This will remain constant throughout the lab.
Confirm setup of the detector system and MCA. Make sure the MCA is set to the maximum number of channels allowed by the software (should be either 1024 or 2048 channels).
Experimental Procedure
Your report should contain a description of the theory behind the detector system in this lab, any equations used and a discussion of how the spectrums generated do or do not match up to theoretical models. When writing equations in your lab report, please use an Equation Editor such as Microsoft Equation Editor 3.0 or something similar. Your goal for this lab report is to show the instructor that you have a firm grasp of scintillator detector theory and can relate that theory to real measurements.