Johnny Klarenbeek

Dean Sullivan

David Valentine

Aman Kataria

Gamma spectroscopy is an important analytical tool used daily in the applied fields of nuclear science and technology. It is the quantitative study of the energy spectra of gamma-ray emitting radionuclides. Gamma spectroscopy is used primarily in the nuclear laboratory, geochemistry, astrophysics, nuclear safety, and in quality control of raw materials manufacturing. Most radioisotopes that emit gamma rays emit rays of different energies and intensities. A gamma ray spectrometer can record these emissions and plot them on a histogram of energy levels (most commonly measured in the kilo to mega electron volt (keV to MeV) range. Since every different radioisotope has a unique signature gamma ray emission, this gamma energy spectrum can be analyzed to determine the type of gamma emitting radioisotopes present. RadInspector has a digital interface accessible through a color LCD screen with touch panel or tactile button input. Software features include capturing and plotting gamma ray emissions on an energy histogram as well as some auxiliary functions such as basic gamma dosimetry. The user can save and load data from plots onto external data storage. The detector is portable (battery powered) and light weight. Our motivation behind this project was to produce a low cost, accessible portable gamma spectrometer to operate in a broad range of energies. The gamma spectrometer market is currently dominated by either scintillation detectors (reasonably affordable) or specialty germanium based detectors (extremely expensive). While silicon based detectors are still actively being researched, not many commercial devices utilize them for the purpose of spectroscopy. The project idea was also appealing due to the variety of scientific and technological disciplines involved, such as nuclear physics, low noise analog amplifier and filter design, digital electronics, power systems, control systems, and digital signal processing. We have gained valuable experience in all of these disciplines from this project.