Investigation of passivated silicon detectors for direct measurements of actinides

Although much progress was made by using high purity germanium detectors for direct measurement of 239Pu in man, the improvement of lung spectroscopy sensitivity remains a challenge. Previous work showed that passivated implanted planar silicon detectors could provide an alternative by combining high-energy resolution at room temperature and planar geometry with large detection arrays. This paper reports on the status of this research based on the characterisation of 3x3 cm2 and 6x3 cm2 strip silicon detectors. Furthermore, the possibility to apply such detectors towards other monitoring problems for accidental situations such as the direct measurement of small contaminated surfaces was investigated. (author)