Neutron Flux Measurement using

Activation Foils

Date : 10th of October, 2017

 Purpose
The purpose of this practical was to find out the neutron flux of MnCO3 where the active
element was Mn.

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 Introduction and Theory

The Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) is a very highly accurate and a very useful analytical
technique. It has several major advantages such as the capability of simultaneous multi
elemental analysis, non-destructivity of the sample, ability to perform qualitative analysis as
well as quantitative analysis and the ability to analyse a sample in virtually any physical state
etc. Since the method is non-destructive, it is widely used to perform analysis on archaeological
artefacts.
In NAA, the sample to be analysed is first irradiated by bombarding it with neutrons. For this
purpose a neutron source is used (Eg: Po) and the sample is usually placed in the activator a
day prior to the experiment. In this irradiation process, a neutron capture takes place when the
incident neutron is captured by the target nucleus in a non-elastic collision. This excites the
nucleus and straightaway the nucleus de-excites to a lower energy level by emitting a gamma
ray. However, it still is in an excited state. Eventually, it de-excites to a more stable state
emitting a beta particle and a delayed gamma ray. This delayed gamma ray can be detected by
the detector and is characteristic to the element. The amount of radiation it gives at a certain
energy level indicates the current activity of the sample. The neutron flux of the sample can
then be calculated using the specific activities of standard sources.
When bombarded with neutrons, Mn-55 undergoes the following nuclear reaction.
55
Mn + 1n 56
Mn + γ
The above reaction takes place with a cross section of 13.2 barns.
The amount of activity yielded by a neutron activated sample depends on,
I. The neutron cross-section of the nuclide
II. The neutron flux and
III. The number of atoms of the nuclide.
They are related by the following relationship.

Where A(t) = Activity of the sample

𝜎 = Neutron cross-section (in barns)
𝜑 = Neutron flux
N = Number of atoms
𝜆 = Decay constant
t = Elapsed time

As t tends to infinity, 1 − 𝑒 term tends to 1. Therefore, the following equation is obtained.

(1)

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The area under the photo-peak of the obtained spectrum is found using the following equation
in order to deduce the background radiation.

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𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑎 = 𝐼𝑁𝑇 − [ (𝐶𝐻 + 1) − 𝐶𝐻 𝑥 (𝐶 + 𝐶 )] (2)
2

Where, INT = Int value of the photo-peak

CH1 = Channel number of the left boundary of the photo-peak
CH2 = Channel number of the right boundary of the photo-peak
C1 = Counts corresponding to CH1
C2 = Counts corresponding to CH2

The efficiency for each gamma ray (or photo-peak) corresponding to each energy level is
calculated using the following equation.

𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝ℎ𝑜𝑡𝑜 − 𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒

𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 = (3)
𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑔𝑎𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑠 𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒

The current activity of sources used is calculated using the following equation.
| |
(4)

Where, At = Current activity

A0 = Original activity
t1/2 = Half-life of the radioisotope
t = Age of the source

Number of Mn-53 atoms in the sample was calculated using the following equation.

(5)

Where, A = Activity
| |
𝜆 = Decay constant =

N = Number of atoms

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 Methodology
1. First the Cs-137 and Co-60 sources were placed one at a time in the detector and the channel
numbers corresponding to their respective photo-peaks (of energies 662keV in Cs-137 and
1332keV of Co-60) were noted down.
2. Then the energy calibration was done using them.
3. After that, the MnCO3 sample that had been placed in the neutron activator the previous
day, was brought and placed in the detector.
4. Then gamma spectrometry was run for the MnCO3 sample and the energy of the gamma
ray emitted was read off and at the same time, the channel number of the peak, channel
numbers of the boundaries of the peak, their corresponding counts and the ROI too were
noted down.
5. Thereafter, spectrum was run for sources Cs-137, Co-60 and Na-22 and the channel
numbers of the peaks, channel numbers of the boundaries of the peaks, their corresponding
counts, the ROI, energy of the peak, counting time, manufacture date and the original
activity of each source were noted down.
6. The current activity of the samples were calculated using equation (4) and the number of
gamma rays emitted per second was obtained by multiplying the activity by the abundance
(abundance values were taken from the experiment schedule).
7. The area under the photo-peak for each peak was calculated using equation (2).
8. The efficiency for each photo-peak was calculated using equation (3).
9. Then the graph of photo-peak efficiency versus energy of the gamma ray was plotted.
10. From the graph, the efficiency of the gamma rays for Mn-56 was obtained.
11. Thereafter, using the area under the photo-peak per unit time of the Mn-56 peak and the
efficiency, the number of gamma rays emitted from the Mn-56 sample per unit time was
calculated.
12. Using that, the activity of Mn-56 in the sample was calculated.
13. After that, the number of Mn-56 atoms in the sample was calculated.
14. Finally, the neutron flux of Mn-56 was calculated using equation (1).

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 Results and Calculations
 Data for energy calibration
Source Energy of the peak (keV) Peak channel number
Cs-137 662 330
Co-60 1332 655

 MnCO3 peak energy = 843.538 keV (channel number: 420)

Sourc Countin Orig. Manu Energ CH C1 CH C2 ROI Area

e g Time Activit . y 1 2 under
(s) y Date (keV) the
(kBq) photo-
peak
Cs- 50 383.6 July, 662 295 40 370 7 55255 53469
137 1984
Co-60 500 37 Sept., 1172 547 35 620 94 52619 35895
2015 8
1332 621 86 691 81 39366 33437.
5
Na-22 300 37 Sept., 510 221 23 280 14 11209 100665
2015 6 5 5
1274 589 21 665 16 18039 16614.
5
Mn- 1000 - - - 393 13 451 7 2582 1992
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Gamma Energy Original Half Elapsed Current Abundance No. of

emitter (keV) activity life time (y) activity (%) gammas
(kBq) (y) (kBq) emitted
per
second
(dps)
Cs-137 662 383.6 30 33.33 177.6 82 145600
Co-60 1172 37 5.25 2.16 27.8 100 27800
1332 37 5.25 2.16 27.8 100 27800
Na-22 510 37 2.6 2.16 20.8 181 37700
1274 37 2.6 2.16 20.8 100 20800

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Gamma Energy Area Counting Count No. of Efficiency
emitter (keV) under the time (s) rate (dps) gammas (x 10-3)
photo- emitted
peak per
second
(dps)
Cs-137 662 53469 50 1069.4 145600 7.3
Co-60 1172 35895 500 71.8 27800 2.6
1332 33437.5 500 66.9 27800 2.4
Na-22 510 100665 300 335.6 37700 8.9
1274 16614.5 300 55.4 20800 2.7
Mn-56 - 1992 1000 1.9 - -

Energy of the gamma ray (keV) Photo-peak efficiency (x 10-3)

510 8.9
662 7.3
1172 2.6
1274 2.7
1332 2.4

Figure 1: Graph of Photo-peak Efficiency versus Energy

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 Figure 2: Efficiency of the Mn-53 Photo-peak obtained from the Graph of Photo-peak Efficiency versus Energy

From equation (3);

1.9
4.698 𝑥 10 =
𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝐺𝑎𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑠 𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒

𝑁𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝐺𝑎𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑠 𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 = 404.4 𝑑𝑝𝑠

Therefore;
Activity of the sample = 404.4 Bq

From equation (5),

ln |2|
𝐴= 𝑥𝑁
𝑡

𝐴𝑥𝑡
𝑁=
ln |2|
404.4 𝑥 2.58 𝑥 60 𝑥 60
𝑁=
ln |2|
𝑁 = 5.419 𝑥 10 𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑚𝑠

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From equation (1),
𝐴(𝑡)
𝜑=
𝜎𝑁
404.4
𝜑= 𝑛𝑒𝑢𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑐𝑚 𝑠
13.36 𝑥 10 𝑥 5.419 𝑥 10

𝜑 = 5.59 𝑥 10 𝑛𝑒𝑢𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑐𝑚 𝑠

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 Final Results

Energy of the Mn-53 Gamma Ray 843.538 keV

Mn–53 Activity in the Sample 318.5 Bq
Neutron Flux of the Mn-53 Sample 5.59 x 1018 neutrons cm-2s-2

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 Discussion

Energy of the photo-peak of the Mn-53 sample was observed to be 843.538 keV when the
gamma spectrometry was run on the sample. The actual energy of the gamma ray emitted by
Mn-53 is 847 keV and therefore it can be seen that the obtained value is very much in line with
the actual value.
The time period for which the gamma spectrometry should be run was decided based on the
activity of the sample. That is, spectrometry was run only for 50s for the Cs-137 source which
had the highest activity of all the sources (177.6 kBq). Spectrometry for other two sources (Co-
60 and Na-22) were run for longer since their activities were much lower than that of the Cs-
137. The neutron activated sample (MnCO3) was supposed to have the lowest activity and
therefore its spectrum was run for 1000s.
When the calculated photo-peak efficiencies were plotted against their respective energies, an
exponential curve was obtained (Figure 1) using Matlab (relevant codes are included in the
appendix). It implies that, in the region of energies 500 keV to 1350 keV, the efficiency of the
photo-peak decreases with the increase of energy and the rate of decrease too decreases. It
could be seen that the efficiency corresponding to the 1274 keV photo-peak of Na-22 was
slightly greater when compared to the efficiencies of the photo-peaks of energies immediately
less than and greater than 1274 keV. However, this graph was in line with real results.

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 Appendix

Figure 3: Matlab code for entering data for the graph

Figure 4: Matlab curve fitting window for the data-set

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 References

 “Neutron Flux Measurement using Activation Foils” Practical Schedule, Department of

Nuclear Science, University of Colombo
 http://www-np.ucy.ac.cy/radio_isotopes/wwwen/gamma/gamma_setup.html (1st of
November, 2017)

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