Effect of geometrical parameter's uncertainty of BIXS experimental setup for tritium analysis

In this paper, the effect of geometrical parameter's uncertainty of experimental setup in β-decay induced X-ray spectroscopy (BIXS) method has been studied. By varying deliberately the distance between the X-ray detector and the sample surface, the change of the tritium content and the tritium depth distribution obtained by the BIXS method has been observed. Both Monte Carlo simulations and experimental measurements were carried out for our BIXS experimental setup. It is found that the BIXS method will not give reliable tritium content and depth distribution of the sample if the sample-detector distance of the experimental setup is not measured accurately, i.e., the deviation of 1 mm of the sample-detector distance will cause ∼10% error of total tritium content besides of the distortion of the shape of tritium depth distribution. This indicates that the geometrical parameters of the experimental setup in the BIXS method must be accurately determined, especially the internal configuration of the X-ray detector used in the BIXS method. The measurement of the internal configuration of an X-ray detector used in the BIXS method by an industrial computed tomography (CT) has been shown in this paper.