Measurement of K-shell fluorescence yield of 141Pr

A considerable amount of work has been done in the past to study the summing phenomenon in a single NaI(Tl) detector. It is expected that HPGe or Ge(Li) detector because of their high energy resolution should yield more accurate and rich summing data. In the present work the K-shell fluorescence yield of daughter atom in the decay 141Ce was determined using the technique of gamma-K x-ray summing in a single detector. The method involves a careful study of the pulse height spectrum observed with a HPGe detector. The K x-rays emitted following K-conversion of gamma rays will be in coincidence with the subsequent gamma rays. The spectrum contains a K x-ray peak, a gamma ray peak and K x-ray-gamma ray sum peak. From an analysis of the area under the sum peak, together with the knowledge of the decay scheme, wk the K-shell fluorescence yield of the daughter atom can be calculated from such a spectra. A clear advantage of this method is determination of wk from the ratio of sum peak area to single peak area and efficiency, thus accuracy in wk can be improved with good statistics. (author). 8 refs., 2 figs., 1 tab