TY - JOUR
T1 - Development of an energy and efficiency calibration method for stilbene scintillators
AU - Kim, Chanho
AU - Kim, Jaehyo
AU - Hong, Wooseong
AU - Yeom, Jung Yeol
AU - Kim, Geehyun
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) ( 2017M2A8A4017932 , NRF-2018R1D1A1A02048400 , and NRF-2020R1A2C2007376 ), and Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute (KEITI) through Subsurface Environment Management (SEM) Project, funded by Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE) ( 2018002440004 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Korean Nuclear Society
PY - 2022/10
Y1 - 2022/10
N2 - A method for calibrating the energy scale and detection efficiency of stilbene scintillators is presented herein. This method can be used to quantitatively analyze the Compton continuum of gamma-ray spectra obtained using such scintillators. First, channel–energy calibration was conducted by fitting a semiempirical equation for the Compton continuum to the acquired energy spectrum and a new method to evaluate the intrinsic detection efficiency, called intrinsic Compton efficiency, of stilbene scintillators was proposed. The validity of this method was verified by changing experimental conditions such as the number of sources being measured simultaneously and the detector–source distance. According to the energy calibration, the standard error for the estimated Compton edge position was ±1.56 keV. The comparison of the intrinsic Compton efficiencies calculated from the single- and two-source spectra showed that the mean absolute difference and the mean absolute percentage difference are 0.031 %p and 0.557%, respectively, demonstrating reasonable accuracy of this method. The feasibility of the method was confirmed for an energy range of 0.5–1.5 MeV, showing that stilbene scintillators can be used to quantitatively analyze gamma rays in mixed-radiation fields.
AB - A method for calibrating the energy scale and detection efficiency of stilbene scintillators is presented herein. This method can be used to quantitatively analyze the Compton continuum of gamma-ray spectra obtained using such scintillators. First, channel–energy calibration was conducted by fitting a semiempirical equation for the Compton continuum to the acquired energy spectrum and a new method to evaluate the intrinsic detection efficiency, called intrinsic Compton efficiency, of stilbene scintillators was proposed. The validity of this method was verified by changing experimental conditions such as the number of sources being measured simultaneously and the detector–source distance. According to the energy calibration, the standard error for the estimated Compton edge position was ±1.56 keV. The comparison of the intrinsic Compton efficiencies calculated from the single- and two-source spectra showed that the mean absolute difference and the mean absolute percentage difference are 0.031 %p and 0.557%, respectively, demonstrating reasonable accuracy of this method. The feasibility of the method was confirmed for an energy range of 0.5–1.5 MeV, showing that stilbene scintillators can be used to quantitatively analyze gamma rays in mixed-radiation fields.
KW - Compton scattering
KW - Energy calibration
KW - Intrinsic detection efficiency
KW - Klein–Nishina formula
KW - Organic scintillator
KW - Stilbene scintillator
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133737966&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.net.2022.06.016
DO - 10.1016/j.net.2022.06.016
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85133737966
SN - 1738-5733
VL - 54
SP - 3833
EP - 3840
JO - Nuclear Engineering and Technology
JF - Nuclear Engineering and Technology
IS - 10
ER -