Speaker
Description
Gamma-ray spectroscopy is a powerful tool used in a variety of fields including nuclear and analytical chemistry, environmental science, and health risk management. At Simon Fraser University Nuclear Science Laboratory (SFU NSL), the Germanium detector for Elemental Analysis and Radiation Studies (GEARS), a low-background shielded high-purity germanium gamma-ray detector, has been used recently in all of the above fields.
The environmental radioisotope monitoring program at SFU NSL has formed into many working collaborations both within and outside the university community. The primary focus of the majority of these collaborations has been towards monitoring the fallout and spread of Fukushima-derived radioisotopes such as cesium-134 and cesium-137 in Pacific marine life. These measurements often focus on measuring trace quantities of radionuclides in extended environmental samples using low-background gamma-ray spectroscopy with GEARS.
A recent addition to the SFU NSL is the Thermo Scientific P 385 neutron generator. This device provides a nominal yield of 3$\times$10$^8$ neutrons/s providing the capacity for neutron activation analysis (NAA), a major avenue of research which was previously not possible at SFU NSL. To measure and study a larger quantity of isotopes produced via NAA, a new analog data acquisition (DAQ) system has been installed on GEARS to do time-resolved gamma-ray spectroscopy with the purpose of measuring nuclear decay kinetics of activated samples. This DAQ allowed GEARS to do precise measurements of the decay kinetics of a meta stable state in tin-117, a candidate radionuclide for diagnostic and therapeutic applications in nuclear medicine, which was produced via NAA at SFU NSL.
An overview and recent results of SFU NSL’s environmental radioisotope monitoring program and the neutron generator facility will be presented.
