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Simple DIY Gamma Ray Spectrometer PMT Project (part 1)

DIY Gamma Spectroscopy - part 1

DIY Gamma Spectroscopy - part 2

DIY Gamma Spectroscopy - part 3

DIY Gamma Spectroscopy - part 4

Gammar Ray Spectrometer is a nuclear physics tool that intended to measure the distribution of gamma photon energy. The professional grade spectrometer
can be found in nuclear research laboratory, geochemical and astrophysics institutes. Usually these devices are maintained under strict calibration process
and include special computer analyzing software. Fortunately there is freeware PRA software was created and it opened the opportunity for many hobbyist
to build their own spectrometry hardware since the most hard work of Pulse Height Analyze is done by the computer software.

The classic spectrometry hardware build with photomultiplier tube, scintillation crytal and electronics that include high voltage power supply and pulse
capture-amplification circuit. The electronics to drive PMT tube has its special requirements such as: clean HV output, right ground plane layout, proper
shielding and low noise signal amplification.

To make my own experimental isotope identifier I purchased russian old stock FEU-31A PMT tube and NaI(Tl) crystal. These things are sold on eBay. The
crystal is not cheap and need to be carefully selected. Avoid yellowed or cracked crystals. Its desirable that the crystal contact area will fit the PMT tube
active area. My current 30x40 NaJ(Tl) crystal is actually bigger than FEU-31 contact window, but I'm not concerned about 100% precision results. If you can
read russian then here you can find excellent document explaining the advantages of different crystal materials. Remember to put a drop of optical
grease between the crystal and the PMT for better light transmission.

Its not recommended to overheat tube pins with soldering because it can damage the PMT. A standard 9-pin tube socket looked me as size compatible, but
the FEU-31 has additional tenth pin. I was thinking that its not a big deal and I drilled a hole in the socket enclosure and inserted into it a standard molex
contact pin. Also the central slot needs to be extended a little. That way I got the custom made tube socket that fit exactly the FEU-31A.

The starting point for the spectrometer electronics can be found in this great article and in Theremino Spetrometry Blog. However, I decided to builld
my own HV circuit with the components I have in stock and to use only single 5V power supply:

The construction have to be properly isolated from light and EMI, so I placed everything inside the metal box I found in our household.
After making output signal quality research with my scope, I discovered that feeding the PMT with negative -1000V HV is better in my circumstances. That's
why I soldered another negative HV power supply unit and applied following circuit for the signal capture. Negative cathode bias is preferable because of less
anode noise.

Negative HV power supply module has lethal output of 1KV DC. With two capacitors of 1uF the energy is (2*1*10^-6F*1000V^2)/2 = 1 Joule and this is
absolutely not safe level you can touch. After the output capacitance is fully charged, the quiescent current of the power supply is about 2.5mA. 10 Mega
ohm load drawn about 30mA from the battery, but since I use high impedance PMT divider, the normal working current drawn from the battery is 5mA.

The output pulses can be checked first with oscilloscope. The computer input microphone volume was trimmed to 5% of the threshold during all test. Noise-
free signal is very important for the spectroscopy. That's why it will be useful to check signal with software spectrum analyzer to be sure that mains hum is
not picked by the circuit.

Here is several histograms I get from my detector. The visual isotopes identifying become possible since each of them has specific shape of the spectrum.
The PRA software can be calibrated with Cesium-137 calibration sample and this is what I did here:
Cesium-137, 32keV and 662keV:

Thorium Latern Mantle:

Normal Background:

The pitfalls I met with my build:

Here are still problems I need to resolve, such as increasing FWHM resolution and improving lowest energy range. My current resolution is about 14.5%. I
was told that the reason for that maybe the disparity between FEU-31 and NaI(Tl) size. It was recommended to reduce crystal diameter in correspondence
with PMT window size. So another smaller diameter crystal will be purchased later to confirm it.
The FWHM calculation for NaI(Tl) can be done with the following formula: FWHM% = deltaE/E * 100. The DIY spectrometer is considered as very good if you
have the FWHM resolution as the technical passport of your crystal is mentioned. Here is the screenshot with resolution calculation example.

Another issue I had is the strong noise interference at the energy lowest than 30 keV. I'm still not sure what is the reason for that, but it added the needs for
the PRA software correction settings of Height Threshold to start from 0.45 on the input channel. As a result I lost the lowest energy on my histograms. After
discovering the issue more deeply I found that it can be significantly improved by reducing the Windows microphone input level to the minimum of 2%-3%
and by reducing the PMT high voltage to about 80%-90% of the nominal 1000V. After I did that I was able to capture Am-241 spectrum that has clearly
visible 26keV line. The left channel height threshold is set to 0.18 in the PRA that is much more better than 0.45 I had before.

Does size matter?

Recently I received additional crystals for my experiments. Mostly I interested how the size of the crystal can affects spectrometry results and resolution.
Above in the article I used 30x40 crystal with comparatively small PMT tube. The mismatch impair resolution and I was curious how I can improve it. Here is
the photo of my new probe: FEU-31A with 18x30 NaI(Tl):

The resolution of the new probe indeed is better. But since the overall size of the crystal became smaller, the higher energy now is less visible. I think It's
naturally because of the physical dimensions of the crystal, that's why the optimal size for FEU-31A probably will be 18X40 or 18x50 crystal. 3% resolution
improvement is visually noticeable, check the Cs-137 and Am-241 histograms below:

The americium histogram now is more selectively in 26keV and 59keV lines, compare with 30x40 crystal results:
The current view of the finished enclosure. The photo was taken during resolution test with PRA software.

You can read the second part of this article here:

Gamma Spectrometry Driver DIY Kit with HV power supply and pulse pre-amplifier