Earth and Environmental Sciences (SEES)

Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy

Gamma-ray Spectroscopy is a technique used to assess the concentration of a given atomic species. In this case the instrument used is a solid state device specifically designed to detect the gamma radiation emitted during the decay of certain radio-nuclides.

SEES has two systems comprising of a standard Canberra Co-axial High Purity Germanium (HpGe) detector suitable for energies between 50keV and 2MeV and a Canberra Low background Broad Energy Germanium (BeGe) detector suitable for energies between 10keV and 3 MeV. Operation is via Canberra InSpector and Canberra DS1000 instrumentation, respectively. Measurement and analysis is performed using Canberra's comprehensive Genie-PC software suite.

Typically the devices have been used to quantify radio-nuclide concentrations in environmental samples such as soils, sediments, vegetation and liquids.

If you are interested in analysing samples using the Gamma-ray spectroscopy, contact James Coyne - james.coyne@port.ac.uk