Gamma Spectrometry Forum

Greetings everyone,

my interests are mostly into electronics and vacuum tubes. I don't know much about gamma spectrometry and physics behind it. I like to work on making cheap, (DIY, open source) sensors for XRF spectrometry useful for elements detection. Handheld XRF detectors seem to be extremely expensive, even on ebay. I know there is room for a lower price there! The gamma detectors sold on the main site are fueling my enthusiasm. I'm happy that the site has an amateur friendly forum despite selling things. After reading some of the topics, I like the sharing attitude and scientific innocence which are basic prerequesities for having some research fun!
My current plan is to modify a cheap Si-PIN "Geiger" detector and hope to make it capable of reading spectra instead of just "counts".

See you around!

George

Hi George,

Welcome to the forum.. I am also interested in hand held or desktop XRF , these are very useful in many trades and currently way too expensive.

It should be possible to develop an open source XRF and produce this at a reasonable cost. It would be very interesting for the jewellery industry. I have some nice 2 mm x 51 mm diameter CsI(Tl) crystals that I want to couple with 2" Hamamatsu PMT's, this should make a nice detector, but a small safe X-Ray source is still difficult to find.

Steven

Thanks for the welcome.
An idea for alternative x-ray source can be found in this link:
http://physicsopenlab.org/2016/02/24/di ... ctrometry/
where the usage of Am241 capsules is documented. Probably not the best x-ray source for a product but possible for the amateur.
Other x-ray source could be a common vacuum tube driven with high voltage. Again, not so good for a product.
I'm sure you and many others have already pondered onto these ideas, I just share my beginner thoughts.

George,

Yes we have done quite a bit of experimentation with Am241 as a source, but the 59 keV gamma rays are a bit soft for the heavier metals of interest. If you want to examine gold, silver and platinum, it is preferable to have something a little harder, also the typical smoke detector buttons are very weak so it takes a long time to get a spectrum.

Commercial units are available from Amptek and others.. [broken link removed - Steven]

Steven