Counter scintillation

Figure 8.28 shows how the X-rays fall on the solid or liquid sample which then emits X-ray fluorescence in the region 0.2-20 A. The fluorescence is dispersed by a flat crystal, often of lithium fluoride, which acts as a diffraction grating (rather like the quartz crystal in the X-ray monochromator in Figure 8.3). The fluorescence may be detected by a scintillation counter, a semiconductor detector or a gas flow proportional detector in which the X-rays ionize a gas such as argon and the resulting ions are counted.

Radiometric ore sorting has been used successfully for some uranium ores because uranium minerals emit gamma rays which may be detected by a scintillation counter (2). In this appHcation, the distribution of uranium is such that a large fraction of the ore containing less than some specified cut-off grade can be discarded with tittle loss of uranium values. Radioactivity can also be induced in certain minerals, eg, boron and beryllium ores, by bombarding with neutrons or gamma rays. 

Liquid scintillation counting is by far the most common method of detection and quantitation of -emission (12). This technique involves the conversion of the emitted P-radiation into light by a solution of a mixture of fluorescent materials or fluors, called the Hquid scintillation cocktail. The sensitive detection of this light is affected by a pair of matched photomultiplier tubes (see Photodetectors) in the dark chamber. This signal is amplified, measured, and recorded by the Hquid scintillation counter. Efficiencies of detection are typically 25—60% for tritium >90% for and P and... 

Electronic Applications. Electronic appHcations make up a significant sector of the cesium market. The main appHcations are in vacuum tubes, photoemissive devices, and scintillation counters (see Electronic materials). 

Deuterium oxide [7789-20-0] M 20, f 3.8°/760mm, b 101.4°/760mm, d 1.105. Distd from alkaline KMnOa [de Giovanni and Zamenhof Biochem 7 92 79 I963. NOTE that D2O invariably contains tritiated water and will therefore be RADIOACTIVE always check the radioactivity of D2O in a scintillation counter before using. 

Oatley and a succession of brilliant students, collaborating with others at the Cavendish Laboratory, by degrees developed an effective instrument a key component was an efficient plastic scintillation counter for the image-forming... 

The gamma rays are detected today with sodium iodide crystals scintillation counters. The counters, 6 to 12 in. long (15 to 30 cm) are shock mounted and housed in the drill collars. Several types of measurements can be made total gamma rays, direction-focused gamma rays, spectral gamma rays. 

A liquid scintillation counter. This instrument is used to detect radiation and measure disintegrations per minute quickly and accurately. 

A scintillation counter registers emitted radiation caused by the disintegration of nuclides. If each atom of nuclide emits one count, what is the activity of a sample that registers 3.00 X 104 disintegrations in five minutes ... 

To measure the volume of the blood in an animal s circulatory system, the following experiment was performed. A 5.0-mL sample of an aqueous solution containing 1.7 X 105 counts per minute (cpm) of tritium was injected into the bloodstream. After an adequate period of time to allow for the complete circulation of the tritium, a 5.0-mL sample of blood was withdrawn and found to have 1.3 X 103 cpm on the scintillation counter. Assuming that only a negligible amount of tritium has decayed during the experiment, what is the volume of the animals circulatory system ... 

Linear molecule A triatomic molecule in which the bond angle is 180° examples include BeF2 and C02,176 Linear polyethylene, 612 Liquid scintillation counter, 518 Liquid-vapor equilibrium, 253-254q boiling point, 230-231 critical pressure, 231-232 critical temperature, 231-232 symbol, 227... 

Figure 2. XRD pattern of an EMD sample (Chemetals). The diffractogram is taken with a Bruker AXS D5005 diffractometer using CuKa radiation and a scintillation counter. The step width is 0.02° with a constant counting time of 10 s / step.

At present, the Geiger counter is the most popular x-ray detector in analytical chemistry. Although it is yielding ground to the proportional counter and the scintillation counter, it will be remembered for having greatly accelerated the use of x-ray emission spectrography in analytical chemistry. 

J. B. Birks, Scintillation Counters, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1953. 

In all this early work, the x-ray beam impinged upon a phosphor powder on the tube envelope. Detectors of this general kind will be called phosphor-photoelectric detectors to distinguish them from modern scintillation counters (2.11), also photoelectric, in which the light is often generated in a single crystal. The name phosphor-photoelectric detector/ though necessary, is clumsy and not entirely satisfactory. 

In the phosphor-photoelectric detector used as just described, the x-ray quanta strike the phosphor at a rate so great that the quanta of visible light are never resolved they are integrated into a beam of visible light the intensity of which is measured by the multiplier phototube. In the scintillation counters usual in analytical chemistry, on the other hand, individual x-ray quanta can be absorbed by a single crystal highly transparent to light (for example, an alkali halide crystal with thallium as activator), and the resultant visible scintillations can produce an output pulse of electrons from the multiplier phototube. The pulses can be counted as were the pulses-from the proportional counter. 

Scintillation counters also have a characteristic plateau. In the scintillation counter the phototube acts as the primary amplifier with a gain as high as 106. A low-gain linear amplifier may be used in conjunction with a scintillation counter, and, again, the range of amplification in the plateau will be about 103 or 104. 

Recent papers from the Philips Laboratories37 40 contain thorough discussions of the Geiger counter, the proportional counter, and the scintillation counter, and significant performance data for all three, the emphasis being placed throughout upon x-ray applications. The detection system employed by Parrish and Kohler was particularly noteworthy in that it could conveniently accommodate any one of four detectors. ... 

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