Absolute determination of low-energy X-ray emission rates with a proportional counter

V H Elvira; V Peyrés; M Roteta; A Fernández-Sotillo; E García-Toraño

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2020.109113

Absolute determination of low-energy X-ray emission rates with a proportional counter

Appl Radiat Isot. 2020 Jun:160:109113. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2020.109113. Epub 2020 Mar 5.

Authors

V H Elvira¹, V Peyrés², M Roteta², A Fernández-Sotillo³, E García-Toraño²

Affiliations

¹ CIEMAT, Laboratorio de Metrología de Radiaciones Ionizantes (LMRI), Avenida Complutense 40, 28040, Madrid, Spain. Electronic address: victor.hernandez@ciemat.es.
² CIEMAT, Laboratorio de Metrología de Radiaciones Ionizantes (LMRI), Avenida Complutense 40, 28040, Madrid, Spain.
³ CIEMAT, Unidad de Pilas de Combustible, Avenida Complutense 40, 28040, Madrid, Spain.

PMID: 32174464
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2020.109113

Abstract

A defined-solid-angle proportional counter has been designed for the absolute determination of X-ray emission rates between 2 keV and 10 keV. The main features of the counter are described in this work, and spectra of two radionuclides with low-energy X-ray emissions are presented. The activity concentration of an ⁵⁵Fe solution was determined by measuring the emission rate of three samples and using tabulated emission probabilities. This activity concentration is compared with the value obtained by liquid scintillation counting, and an excellent agreement has been found.

Keywords: Absolute techniques; Defined-solid-angle counting; Low-energy X-rays; Proportional counter.