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Detecting Alpha Particles Through Scintillation In Porous Materials, Martin E. Keillor

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the results of a preliminary study of parameters essential to the development of a scintillation flow-cell detector with improved characteristics over existing cells. Such a detector with better than 10% alpha energy resolution could provide in situ capability to detect and identify important alpha-emitting radionuclides in dilute aqueous solutions. Gel-silica is a potential candidate that may provide the needed improvement in resolution while maintaining 100% detection efficiency; however, gel-silica with useful light output is yet to be developed. As a step toward realizing the system described, the dependence of alpha detection efficiency and intrinsic energy resolution on …