Experimental investigation of saturation depth of 0.662 MeV gamma rays in copper

Abstract

The effect of target thickness on 0.662 MeV multiply Compton scattered gamma photon has been studied experimentally. An intense collimated beam, obtained from 6-Ci¹³⁷Cs source, is allowed to impinge on a rectangular copper target of varying thickness and the scattered photons are detected by a properly shielded NaI(Tl) scintillation detector, having dimensions 51φ mm51 mm, placed at 90º to the incident beam. The subtraction of events under the analytically reconstructed full energy peak from the events recorded under the observed inelastic peak results in multiply scattered events having energy same as in single scattering. The target thickness at which the number of multiply scattered events saturates has also been determined. The signal-to-noise ratio is found to be decreasing with increasing target thickness. Monte Carlo calculation supports the present experimental results.