Determination of LX ray absolute emission intensities of 238Pu, 244Cm, 237Np and 233Pa radionuclides using a metallic magnetic calorimeter

摘要: Energy dispersive photon spectrometry is a common analysis technique to quantify radionuclides present in a sample, the analysis is based on the knowledge of the photon emission intensities specific to each radionuclide. Among them, actinides have in general intense emission of L X-rays during the decay. However, their emission intensities are not well known and not detailed in the nuclear and atomic data tables due to the complexity of their spectra that cannot be resolved by conventional semiconductor spectrometers. Using a dedicated high energy resolution cryogenic detector, based on metallic magnetic calorimeter sensor technology, the L X-ray spectra of the decays of 238Pu(α) → 234U, 244Cm(α) → 240Pu, 237Np(α) → 233Pa and 233Pa(β−) → 233U were measured with an energy resolution between 23 eV and 43 eV (full width at half maximum) given access to an unprecedented level of detail …