Abstract:
In the spectral mean cross section measurements of 197Au(n,2n)196Au and 45Sc(n,2n)44Scm, the activation products 196Au and 44Scm have low activity and shorter halflife, but the activation products 198Au and 46Sc from neutron capture reactions of 197Au(n,g) and 45Sc(n,g) have strong activity and longer halflife, which results in poor signaltonoise ratio of gammaray characteristic peaks, and increases the measuring uncertainty of 196Au and 44Scm activity. In order to accurately measure 196Au and 44Scm, a radioactive activity measuring device based on anticoincidence principle was developed. The main techniques used were as follows: Firstly, liquid flash measurement system has been used to detect the betaray emitted by the decay of 198Au and 46Sc, basing on the anticoincidence principle, the betaray would be used to suppress Compton background caused by gammarays emitted by the two nuclides above; Secondly, a portable antiCompton spectrometer has been constructed using a ring sodium iodide crystal, and the Compton background caused by the decay of 198Au and 46Sc has been further suppressed by the anti-Compton principle. Thirdly, a thin layer of lead shield has been placed between the radioactive source distributed evenly in the liquid scintillation and a wellshaped high purity germanium (HPGe) crystal to absorb the Xrays emitted by the decay of the 196Au, as results, the coincidence between the Xrays and the characteristic gammarays emitted by 196Au in the HPGe crystal reduces significantly, and the detection efficiency of this measurement device for 196Au increases too. By using the digital spectrometer, the liquid flash measurement system and the antiCompton spectrometer integrated into one, the anticoincidence effect could be superimposed and good experimental results were obtained. For 198Au and 46Sc, the anticoincidence inhibition ratio is 87.1% and 86.9% respectively. The detection efficiency for 44Scm is 31.3%. After increasing the shielding layer, the detection efficiency for 196Au increases greatly, from 5.5% when the shielding layer is not available up to 11.9%. Under the condition of strong isotope interference (198Au or 46Sc of 0.2 MBq), the minimum detectable activity (MDA) of 24 h detecting to 196Au is less than 0.7 Bq, and to 44Scm is less than 0.3 Bq. Applying the double anticoincidence measuring device established in this paper to the activity measurement of 196Au and 44Scm could effectively reduce the uncertainty of 197Au(n,2n)196Au and 45Sc(n,2n)44Scm average crosssection measurement.