A high-capacity gamma-ray spectrometer facility in the NIST irradiation laboratory

As the demand for greater throughput and shorter turnaround times for analytical work is increasing, instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) has come under pressure to substantially improve its performance in these areas. Of course, such improvements are expected without any loss of quality in other performance parameters, such as precision and accuracy. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is responding to the aforementioned demands with increased utilization of short-lived ultrashort-lived nuclides and high-rate counting techniques in INAA. Part of this effort involves, in the course of the renovation of the NIST research reactor irradiation laboratories, the establishment of a newly designed gamma-ray spectrometry facility with three high-rate, high-resolution germanium detectors. The three detectors allow simultaneous counting of three samples and/or standards irradiated at the same time. The detector systems have been evaluated in a preliminary setup and are now being relocated in close proximity of the irradiation terminals to achieve short sample transfer times