Xenon Gamma Detector Project Support

This project provided funding of $48,500 for part of one year to support the development of compressed xenon spectrometers at BNL. This report describes upgrades that were made to the existing detector system electronics during that period, as well as subsequent testing with check sources and Special Nuclear Materials. Previous testing of the equipment extended only up to the energy of 1.3 MeV, and did not include a spectrum of Pu-239. The new electronics allowed one-button activation of the high voltage ramp that was previously controlled by manual adjustments. Mechanical relays of the charging circuit were replaced by a tera-ohm resistor chain and an optical switch. The preamplifier and shaping amplifier were replaced by more modern custom designs. We found that the xenon purity had not been degraded since the chamber was filled 10 years earlier. The resulting spectra showed significantly better resolution than sodium iodide spectra, and could be analyzed quite effectively by methods using peak area templates.