Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Kolkata 9th – 16th Feb 2010

Gamma Spectrometer
(Multi-channel Analyzer)
Harsh Purwar (07MS – 76)
3rd Year, Integrated M.S.
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata

Experiment No. – 4
Nuclear & Particle Physics Laboratory (PH – 325)

Objectives of the experiment:

• To determine the energy of unknown gamma radiations emitted by  ,  
and 
nuclei using multi-channel analyzer (GDM 10).
• To determine the relative efficiency and resolution of the Scintillation detector.
• To study the dependence of resolution and relative efficiency of the detector on the
applied photo-multiplier tube voltage with   as source.

Introduction:
Gamma spectroscopy involves the spectroscopy of radioactive nuclei which emit
gamma rays of various energies and intensities. These emited ’s are detected using a
Scintillator detector (discussed below) and counted using Geiger counters. The pulse
height which is proportional to the energy of the emitted  is determined and finally a
gamma spectrum is obtained.
In this experiment spectrum is being produced by multi-channel analyzer which
essentially is like many single-channel analyzers working together. Each channel
corresponds to a particular energy window and by counting the number of pulses or 
radiations within this energy window/channel a spectrum as shown in Figure 1 below is
obtained. This spectrum is then calibrated to give number of  counts versus energy,
using the known values of the energy corresponding to the two peaks in cobalt – 60
spectrum. The peaks are fitted using a Gaussian distribution to give mean and standard
deviation etc.

Theory/Principles:
Scintillation detector
It is one of the most common detectors based on the light sensing technique. This is
also one of the earliest radiation detectors which was used extensively by Rutherford and
his colleagues. The basic function of a scintillation detector, much like other types of
detectors, is to transform the energy of an incoming particle to a measurable/recordable
electronic signal. A modern scintillation detector consists of two main components:
1. A scintillator and
2. A photo-multiplier tube

SCINTILLATOR:
A scintillator is a material that emits light (a photon in visible region), scintillates,
while absorbing radiations. When a particle passes through the material it collides with

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Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Kolkata 9th – 16th Feb 2010
atomic electrons, exciting them to higher energy levels. After a very short period of time
these excited electrons fall back to their natural levels, causing emission of light.
Here the scintillator is a cylindrical sodium iodide   crystal with a height and a
diameter of approximately 5 . The gamma radiation originating from radioactive source
while interacting with scintillator may lead to any one of the following three phenomena:
1. Photoelectric effect
2. Compton scattering
3. Pair production

Photo-electric Effect:
The photoelectric effect is a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted from matter
(metals and non-metallic solids, liquids or gases) as a consequence of their absorption of
energy from electromagnetic radiation of very short wavelength, such as visible or
ultraviolet light. Emitted electrons are referred as ‘photo-electrons’. Electrons emitted via
this process have almost same kinetic energy as that of the incident gamma particles
since the binding energy of an electron is of the order of a few electron volts whereas that
of the incident gamma radiation is in kilo-electron volts.

Compton Effect:
Compton scattering is a type of scattering that X-rays and -rays undergo in matter.
The inelastic scattering of photons in matter results in a decrease in energy (increase in
wavelength) of an X-ray or gamma photon, called the Compton effect. Part of the energy
of the X/gamma ray is transferred to a scattering electron, which recoils and is ejected
from its atom, and the rest of the energy is taken by the scattered photon.

Pair Production:
Pair production refers to the creation of an elementary particle and its anti-particle,
usually from a photon (or another neutral boson). This is allowed, provided there is
enough energy available to create the pair – at least the total rest mass energy of the two
particles – and that the situation allows both energy and momentum to be conserved. All
other conserved quantum numbers of the produced particles must sum to zero, thus the
created particles shall have opposite values of each quantum number.
Example:
 →  + 
In nuclear physics, this occurs when a high – energy photon interacts, in the
vicinity of a nucleus, allowing the production of an electron and a positron pair without
violating the conservation of momentum. Since the momentum of the initial photon
must be absorbed by something, pair production cannot occur in empty/free space out
of a single photon; the nucleus (or another photon) is needed to conserve both
momentum and energy.

PHOTO-MULTIPLIER TUBE:
In all the above described processes electrons with different energies were
produced. These electrons collide with the atoms of the crystal and excite them. These
atoms emit photons with energy in the visible range during their de-excitation. These
photons reach the photo-cathode of the photo-multiplier tube, the next part of the
detector. From the photo-cathode numbers of emitted electrons rush towards the first
dynode, strike it and generate more electrons which then accelerate towards the next
dynode. The supplied external high voltage (PMT voltage) is divided approximately
equally across the dynodes. So when the resulting shower of electrons plunge into the
anode with higher potential gives rise to an electric pulse whose amplitude is

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Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Kolkata 9th – 16th Feb 2010
proportional to the amount of collected photons at the photo-cathode and therefore the
energy of the incoming gamma photon.

This electric signal is then amplified and is converted into digital signal using an
Analog to Digital converter. By analyzing the height of the pulse, energy of the incoming
gamma photon can be measured.

Resolution of the detector:

As clear from the spectra shown below, the peaks have certain width, due to the
statistical response of mainly the photo-multiplier tube. The width of the peak depends
on the energy of the radiation. Here we define the resolution of the detector by,
FWHM
Resolution
Ch. no. corresponding to the maxima/peaks

Relative Efficiency:
Not all gamma rays emitted by the source and passing through the detector produce a
count. The probability that an emitted gamma ray will interact with the detector and
produce a count is defined as the efficiency of the detector. In our setup, we measured
the efficiency by finding the ratio of the area under the peaks to the area under the
entire spectrum.
NOTE: Here area under the entire spectrum is just the summation of the values of the
counts corresponding to each channel.

Decay Schemes:
• Radioactive decay scheme for Co-60 to Ni-60 is as shown below:
23
 4
7  89

 89
1173 =>

 89
1333 =>
23
5 6

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Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Kolkata 9th – 16th Feb 2010
• Radioactive decay scheme for Cs-137 to Ba-137 is as shown below:

??

7  89

7  89
 89


?2 

Similar are radioactive decay patterns for Na-22 and Ba-133.

Procedure:
• All the wired connections were checked and the apparatus was switched on.
• The radioactive source Cobalt-60, at the beginning for calibration, was kept at the
top of the Scintillator detector and was covered with the Lead (Pb) lid.
• PMT voltage was then set to 480 volts by slowly rotating the corresponding helipot.
• Gamma spectrum was obtained with the help of a software supplied with the
apparatus called WinDAS and the data was also saved as an ASCII file for future
references.
• The positions of the two peaks (maxima) in the obtained Co-60 spectrum were
found using the Centroid function available under the Calculate tab of the supplied
software and were noted along with the full width at half maximum (FWHM)
values. These peak positions correspond to the known energies of the .
• The source was then replaced and another spectrum for Na-22 (say) was obtained.
• This Na-22 spectrum was then calibrated from channel number to energy in KeV
using the given energies corresponding to the channel numbers with maximum
counts (peak) for Cobalt-60 spectrum noted earlier. These values are listed in
Table 1.
Other given radioactive sources namely Cs-137 and Ba-133 were also placed one by one
and the corresponding energies of -photons were obtained by the similar procedure.
Now for calculating the relative efficiency and resolution of the detector Na-22 was used
as a source and following protocol was implemented.
• Sodium-22 was placed at the top of the Scintillator detector.
• The various spectrums for different values of PMT voltage, starting from 400 volts
to 560 volts in the gap of 20 volts, were obtained.
• For both the peaks in Na-22 gamma spectrum, area under the peak and FWHM
along with the corresponding PMT voltage was noted as in Table 2.

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Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Kolkata 9th – 16th Feb 2010
Observed Spectra’s:

@ 1173 => and @ 1333 =>

Peak due to back-

scattering of  from the
Lead (Pb) shield used as
the Scintillator Lid

Compton Scattering

Figure 1: Gamma Spectrum of Cobalt - 60.

@ 513.5 ± 16.5 =>

@ 1319.9 ± 20.4 =>

Figure 2: Gamma Spectrum of Sodium-22.

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Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Kolkata 9th – 16th Feb 2010

@ 35.1 ± 8.4 => and @ 78.4 ± 5.4 =>

@ 349.0 ± 12.8 =>

Figure 3: Gamma Spectrum of Barium-133.

@ 679.0 ± 14.4 =>

Figure 4: Gamma Spectrum of Caesium-137.

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Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Kolkata 9th – 16th Feb 2010
Observations & Results:
CALIBRATION:
The gamma spectrums for various radioactive samples were calibrated using the
following energy values corresponding to the channel number with maximum counts
(peaks) in the Cobalt – 60 spectrum as shown in Figure 1.

Channel No. Known Energy Full width at half max. (FMWH)

Peak No.
with max. counts (KeV) (Ch. No.)
1 751 1173 33
2 848 1333 31

OBSERVATIONS:

Table 1: For estimating the energy of the emitted gamma photon for the given radioactive sources.

Energy after calibration Standard Deviation H

Peak No.
(KeV) (KeV)
For Sodium – 22    
1 513.5 16.5
2 1319.9 20.4
For Caesium-137  

1 679.0 14.4
For Barium – 133    
1 35.1 8.4
2 78.4 5.4
3 349.0 12.8

Table 2: For calculation of relative efficiency and resolution of the detector using Sodium – 22 as a
source for peak 1 corresponding to the energy 513.5 KeV.

Peak corresponding to 513.5 KeV of energy

Obs. PMT Voltage Position of Relative
SD FWHM Δ*
No. >4IJ Maxima Area Resolution Efficiency
H (Ch. No.)
(Ch. No.)
1 400 116 3.34 9 98759 0.0783 1058889 0.0933
2 420 157 4.09 11 80566 0.0702 995579 0.0809
3 440 208 5.53 16 127118 0.0775 1560296 0.0815
4 460 272 7.01 19 121687 0.0698 1546317 0.0787
5 480 359 9.3 25 169860 0.0704 1918164 0.0886
6 500 465 13.3 36 248979 0.0780 2113499 0.1178
7 520 595 16.5 42 292252 0.0699 2359393 0.1239
8 540 748 20.2 57 321635 0.0756 2740296 0.1174
9 560 945 21.9 65 276197 0.0684 2819849 0.0979
Δ*: Refers to the total area under the spectrum.

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Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Kolkata 9th – 16th Feb 2010
Table 3: For calculation of relative efficiency and resolution of the detector using Sodium – 22 as a
source for peak 2 corresponding to the energy 1319.9 KeV.

Peak corresponding to 1319.9 KeV of energy

Obs. PMT Voltage Position of Relative
SD FWHM ∆*
No. >4IJ Maxima Area Resolution Efficiency
H (Ch. No.)
(Ch. No.)
1 400 280 4.78 12 18379 0.0411 1058889 0.0174
2 420 375 6.44 17 16257 0.0456 995579 0.0163
3 440 498 8.06 21 22396 0.0420 1560296 0.0144
4 460 653 10.2 29 21501 0.0443 1546317 0.0139
5 480 858 15.9 41 37035 0.0474 1918164 0.0193
Δ*: Refers to the total area under the spectrum.

Figure 5: Resolution versus Photo-multiplier tube voltage for both peaks

in the gamma emission spectrum of sodium-22.

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Indian Institute of Science Education & Research, Kolkata 9th – 16th Feb 2010

Figure 6: Relative efficiency versus applied Photo-multiplier tube voltage

for both peaks in the gamma emission spectrum of sodium-22.

Conclusions:
• The energies corresponding to the emitted gamma radiations measured/calculated
using the multi-channel analyzer are close to the actual values as shown below.

Observed energy of the emitted  photons Theoretical value

Radioactive sources
(KeV) (KeV)
513.5 ± 16.5 511.0
Na-22
1319.9 ± 20.4 1275.0
78.4 ± 5.4 80.0
Ba-133
349.0 ± 12.8 356.0
Cs-137 679.0 ± 14.4 662.0

• The resolution of the peak corresponding to the energy 513.5 ± 16.5 KeV in Na-22
spectrum is about 7 – 8 percent whereas resolution of the second peak
corresponding to the energy 1319.9 ± 20.4 is about 4 – 5 percent.
• The relative efficiency for the peak corresponding to the energy 513.5 ± 16.5 KeV in
Na-22 spectrum is greater than that of second peak corresponding to the energy
1319.9 ± 20.4 KeV.
• Relative efficiency as predictable from the Figure 6 above seems to have a
maximum at 520 V of the supplied PMT voltage.

References:
• http://en.wikipedia.org
• Supplied supplementary reading material and User manual.
• Nuclear Physics by S. N. Ghoshal

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