Deconvolution of 238,239,240Pu conversion electron spectra measured with a silicon drift detector

S Pommé; M Marouli; J Paepen; N Marković; R Pöllänen

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2017.08.033

Deconvolution of ^238,239,240Pu conversion electron spectra measured with a silicon drift detector

Appl Radiat Isot. 2018 Apr:134:233-239. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2017.08.033. Epub 2017 Sep 13.

Authors

S Pommé¹, M Marouli², J Paepen², N Marković³, R Pöllänen⁴

Affiliations

¹ European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Nuclear Safety and Security, Retieseweg 111, B-2440 Geel, Belgium. Electronic address: stefaan.pomme@ec.europa.eu.
² European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Nuclear Safety and Security, Retieseweg 111, B-2440 Geel, Belgium.
³ European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Nuclear Safety and Security, Retieseweg 111, B-2440 Geel, Belgium; Technical University of Denmark, Center for Nuclear Technologies, Radioecology Department, Roskilde, Denmark.
⁴ Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, FIN-00014, Finland.

PMID: 28964594
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2017.08.033

Abstract

Internal conversion electron (ICE) spectra of thin ^238,239,240Pu sources, measured with a windowless Peltier-cooled silicon drift detector (SDD), were deconvoluted and relative ICE intensities were derived from the fitted peak areas. Corrections were made for energy dependence of the full-energy-peak counting efficiency, based on Monte Carlo simulations. A good agreement was found with the theoretically expected internal conversion coefficient (ICC) values calculated from the BrIcc database.

Keywords: Isotopic ratio; Nuclear security; Plutonium; Safeguards; Silicon drift detector; Spectrum deconvolution.