Graduation date: 2007
A state-of-the-art radiation detection system for simultaneous spectroscopy
of beta-particles and gamma-rays has been developed. The system utilizes a triplelayer
phoswich detector and a customized Digital Pulse Processor (DPP) built in
our laboratory. The DPP board was designed to digitally capture the analog signal
pulses and, following several digital preprocessing steps, transfer valid pulses to the host computer for further digital processing. A MATLAB algorithm was developed
to digitally discriminate beta and gamma events and reconstruct separate beta and
gamma-ray energy spectra with minimum crosstalk. The spectrometer proved to be
an effective tool for recording separate beta and gamma-ray spectra from mixed
radiation fields. The system as a beta-gamma spectrometer will have broad-ranging
applications in nuclear non-proliferation, radioactive waste management, worker
safety, systems reliability, dose assessment, and risk analysis.