Effect of detector crystal size on Compton suppression factors

Abstract

The geometrical parameters which affect the suppression factor for an HPGe (High Purity Germanium)-NaI Compton suppression spectrometer were studied by a Monte Carlo simulation with the EGS4 system. The spectrums were crated for 5 energy values ranging from 200 keV to 2 MeV. Compton suppression factors (CSFs), the parameters characterizing the system performance, were calculated for different HPGe crystal parameters. It was observed that to obtain better Compton suppressed factors, a laboratory must choose as small HPGe crystal as possible for energy values up to 400 keV. However, for higher energies up to 2 MeV, larger HPGe crystals provide better Compton suppression systems. These findings suggest that the choice of HPGe crystal size can significantly impact the performance of a Compton suppression spectrometer and should be carefully considered in its design and optimization.

KEYWORDS:

• HPGe detector
• Compton suppression factor
• EGS4 code

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Selim Kaya

Selim Kaya Ph.D. an assistant professor at Gümüşhane University, Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences, Department of Physics Engineering. He completed his doctorate at Karadeniz Technical University, Institute of Science and Technology, Department of Physics in 2013. Master's and PhD studies are in the field of Atomic and Molecular Physics. He specializes in the areas of atom and molecular physics, X-ray and gamma-ray spectroscopy, nuclear shielding, etc. He has published more than 30 research articles in journals and conferences and completed several sponsored research projects.

Necati Çelik

Necati Çelik is a professor of physics at Gümüşhane University. His research areas are nuclear physics quantum information and quantum calculations. He completed his PhD thesis at Karadeniz Technical University in 2010. He performed research at Ghent University and the Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM), Belgium for two years. He published more than 40 scientific papers in international-refereed journals. He also completed more than 10 research projects supported by different organizations including the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK).

Abdulkadir Gök

Abdulkadir Gök is a student who completed his master's degree at Gümüşhane University in Postgraduate Education Institute in 2023. He graduated from Ondokuz Mayís University in 2013. He is currently studying gamma-ray spectrometry.

Uğur Çevik

Uğur Çevik is a professor of physics at Karadeniz Technical University, Turkey. He worked as a visiting professor at the University of Antwerp in Belgium in 2007–2008 and received the “Belgian Science Policy OSTC Grant” award from the Belgian Ministry of Education. He received Akdeniz University's Environmental Service Science Award in 2007 for his work in the field of radiation and environmental physics. He has more than 120 articles in SCI journals and nearly 50 presentations at national/international conferences. His publications have received more than 2500 citations in journals scanned by SCI.