Quantitative Determination of (252)Cf.

Ahmad, I. ; Moore, E. F. ; Porter, C. E. ; Greene, J. P. ; Felker, L. K.

Technical Information Center Oak Ridge Tennessee

关键词: Californium 252;    Spectroscopy;    Absorption;    Alpha decay;    Fission fragments;   

RP-ID  :  DE200243033

学科分类：工程和技术（综合）

美国|英语

来源: National Technical Reports Library

【 摘 要 】

Sealed (sup 252)Cf sources in the microCurie to milliCurie range are routinely used in industry and research. At present, no reliable analytical method is available for precise determination of the activity. Very strong sources can be analyzed by neutron counting but the error is large. The authors propose to use gamma-ray spectroscopy for such analysis. In particular, high-energy gamma rays (above 1 MeV) of fission fragments in equilibrium with the source are very convenient because they have little absorption in materials surrounding the source. They have measured the gamma/alpha ratio for (sup 252)Cf with an uncertainty of better than 5%. The experiment involved the preparation of several thin (sup 252)Cf sources, alpha pulse height analysis, determination of alpha decay rate, and the measurement of gamma singles spectrum with a well shielded germanium spectrometer. The measured ratio and the gamma ray spectroscopy of unknown samples can provide the activity of (sup 252)Cf in these samples.