Nuclear Physics Practical Viva Questions

by Tonmoy Sharma

Questions are usually asked on these topics:

1. Beta Spectrum
2. Beta Decay
3. Interaction of Beta particle with matter
4. Interaction of Gamma ray / photon with matter
5. Decay scheme
6. Background radiation
7. Radioactivity units
8. GM Counting system - circuit, operating regions, working and need of quenching, dead
time, gm signal/pulse.
9. Radioactivity uctuations

Questions:

Q1. Explain the design of the GM counting system.

Ans: (Note:- The terms “GM counter” and “GM counting system” are di erent. The later includes
both of the GM counter and the GM Tube)

The GM counter system consists of a GM tube which is consists of metal tube which acts as a
cathode (-). The Anode (+) is a tungsten wire of thickness 0.1-0.5 mm which placed along the axis
of the tube and insulated at the ends by ebonite plug. A glass bead is xed at the end of the
anode wire to remove the end e ects which cause corona discharge. One end of the cylinder has
a thin mica window, from where the ionising radiation enters. The tube is operated in G-M region.
The GM tube is sealed and is lled with Argon gas along with quenching gas (90% argon and
10% quenching gas(methane, ethyl alcohol or bromine)) at 76 Torr pressure ( or 76 mmHg).
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 Q2. Explain the circuit of GM counting system. What is the use of the capacitor?
Ans: When electrons are collected in the anode, there is change in voltage across the capacitor.
This change in voltage is detected as pulse and is ampli ed and then then sent to the counter.
The capacitor is known as coupling condenser (denoted by CC). The function of this capacitor is
to block high DC voltage.

Q3. Explain the working of the GM counting system. What is quenching and why is it
necessary?
Ans: When a charged particle(alpha, beta particles) enters the GM tube, the molecules of the gas
are ionised. Due to high electric eld between the anode and cathode, the resulting positive ions
and electrons accelerate towards the cathode and anode, respectively. Electrons are strongly
accelerated towards the anode so that it acquires su cient kinetic energy to cause secondary
ionisation. The electrons produced in these secondary ionisations, along with the primary
electrons, continue to gain energy as they move towards the anode and produce more ionisation.
The ood of ions produced is termed as the Townsend avalanche. When these electrons are
collected in the anode, a pulse, known as Geiger Discharge is generated, which is recorded as a
count.

Quenching:-
If a Geiger tube is lled with a single gas such as argon, then all the positive ions formed are ions
of that same gas species. After the primary Geiger discharge, the positive ions reaches the
cathode, it captures an electron from the cathode surface. Here the Argon ion become neutral
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 atom but in excited state. As a result of its de-excitation, photons are emitted, some of them are
in the a UV region.
Ar* (excited state) ——————> Ar + photon (ultraviolet)
These UV photon liberate free electron from the cathode surface by photoelectric e ect. This
electron will then drift toward the anode and will trigger another avalanche, leading to a second
full Geiger discharge. The entire cycle will now be repeated, and under these circumstances the
G-M counter, once initially triggered, would produce a continuous output of multiple pulses.
To overcome this problem, a technique known as Quenching is used.
“Quenching is a technique of decreasing or terminating the probability of repetitive discharges in
GM counter and the agent used for this purpose is known as quencher or quenching agent”.
There are two types of quenching, external quenching and internal/self quenching. In our
GM counter, that is used for the experiment, internal quenching is used.

Q4. What is dead time of GM counter and why is it caused?

Ans: The time for which the GM counter remain insensitive to incident ionisation radiation is
known as Dead Time of the GM counter. It is of the order 50-100 s.
Upon ionisation of gas inside the GM tube by the incident radiation, the positive gas ions and the
electrons move towards the cathode and anode. All the electrons in avalanche, being light and
highly mobile, reach the anode wire within a fraction of a microsecond after the ionisation has
occurred. The positive ions proceed at the same time towards the cathode.
(The gure below shows a region very close to the anode wire immediately after the avalanche has
occurred. A fraction of microsecond later, the electrons have reached the anode wire, whereas the
positive ions are still stranded around the wire.)
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The presence of the positive ion sheath around the anode wire lowers the electric eld between
the Geiger threshold (i.e below the operating voltage). A particle entering the GM tube at this time
is thus unable to produce an avalanche. As the positive ion sheath drifts towards the cathode
wall. i.e away from the anode , the electric eld increases. However, since the positive ion sheath
is still unneutralised within the GM tube, so if the particle enters and causes ionisation in the tube
before the threshold voltage is restored, a premature pulse is formed which will not be recorded
by the counter.

Q5. Draw the GM tube pulse and show the dead time, recovery time and resolving time of the
GM tube.
Ans:
Dead Time:- The time for which
the GM counter remain
insensitive to incident ionisation
radiation.
Recovery time:- The time that it
takes the GM counter to build
the electric eld back up to full
strength after a full Geiger
discharge.
Resolving time:- The production,
collection and neutralisation of
the ions pairs requires time. This
time period is called the
instrument’s resolving time.

Q6. Suppose the GM counter has detected 520 counts. Does it implies that 520 number of
Beta particles were incident on the GM tube?
Ans: No, the number of particles entered inside the GM tube will be greater than the counts
recorded by the GM Counter. This is because after a particle is detected, the GM counter remains
insensitive to the next incident particle for a time period known as Dead Time.

Q7. At what pressure the Argon inside the GM tube is kept? Why the pressure of the gas is
lower than the atmospheric pressure?
Ans: The pressure of Argon gas inside the tube is 76 Torr ( 76 mmHg = 0.1 atm).
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The pressure is lower than the normal atmospheric pressure because, the drift velocity of the ions
E
in gas depends on the factor where, E is the electric eld strength and P is the pressure of the
P
gas. Thus with lower pressure of the gas, the ions will have higher drift velocity hence will create
an avalanche.

Q8. Why do we use only Argon inside GM tube, why not any other gas?
Ans: Argon is used because of the following reasons:
- It is inert gas i.e. it will not chemically react with other quenching gas.
- It has completely lled outer shell so it doesn’t easily gets ionised due to thermal agitation. The
argon gets ionised only when a radiation particle enters.
- It has low electron attachment coe cients to allow ionised electrons to drift easily in the tube.

Q9. Why Alcohol or Halogen is used as quenching gas, why not any other gas?
Ans: The requirements of a quenching gas is that it should not de-excite by emitting UV photons.
In organic quenching Ethyl alcohol is used along with Argon gas inside the GM tube. When the
organic molecule ion acquires an electron from the cathode surface, it neutralises and de-excites
by dissociation of many complex ethyl alcohol molecules into uncharged fragments rather than
emitting UV photons.
In inorganic quenching, Bromine is used along with Argon inside GM tube. When the bromine
ion neutralises by acquiring an electron from cathode surface, it remains in excited state and de-
excites by dissociating its diatomic bonds. They recombine again after a short time interval.

Q10. Is Beta Spectrum continuous? Explain the Beta spectrum.

Ans: Yes, the Beta spectrum is continuous.
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 In Beta decay, the total energy is constant and is shared by the neutrino/antineutrino and the beta
particle. The energy carried by the neutrino is not constant but varies continuously, leaving
thereby a continuously varying energy to the Beta particle and hence the continuous spectrum. At
the end point, the total energy is carried away by the beta particle and the new particle carries
zero energy.

Q11. How does Beta particle interacts with matter? / Explain the different types of energy loss
mechanisms for electrons.
Ans: Beta particles interacts with matter in three ways:
• Ionisation and excitation: Electrons lose energy via interaction / collisions with the orbital
electrons in the medium. This leads to excitation or ionisation of the atom.
• Cherenkov radiation: When beta particles passes through a medium at a speed greater than
the speed of light in that medium, it emits visible electromagnetic radiation, usually bluish light.
• Bremsstrahlung radiation: When a beta particle (fast electron) traveling through matter
approaches a nucleus, the large positive charge of the nucleus exerts a strong Coulomb force
on the beta particle due to which it de-accelerates, which is followed by emissions of
electromagnetic radiation.
(Bremsstrahlung radiation = Braking radiation in German)

Q12. How does photon (gamma ray, UV ray, etc.) interact with matter?
Ans:
• Photoelectric e ect
• Compton e ect
• Pair production

Q13. What causes the uctuations in the detected Counts?

Ans: Radioactive decay is a random process. Consequently, any measurement based on
observing the radiation emitted in a nuclear decay is subjected to some degree of statistical
uctuations. These inherent uctuations are unavoidable in all nuclear measurements.

Q14. What causes background counts?

Ans: Because of the cosmic radiation that continuously bombards the earth's atmosphere and the
existence of natural radioactivity in the environment, all radiation detectors record some
background signal. The nature of this background varies greatly with the size and type of detector
and with the extent of shielding that may be placed around it.
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Q15. Explain the different operating regions of gas detector.
Ans:
The curve for alpha particles is higher than that for beta particle because of the greater numbers
of ion pairs produced by an alpha particle ( as alpha particle is massive and carries more charge
as compared to beta particle).

Recombination region - The ion pairs produced by the incident radiation recombine to form
neutral atom/ molecule, as the potential on the electrodes is too low.

Ionisation region - All of the primary ions produced by the incident radiations are collected by the
electrodes and hence the count rate remains constant with increase in voltage. Ionisations
chambers works in this region.

Proportional region - At this voltage the primary electrons are strongly accelerated towards the
anode so that it acquires su cient kinetic energy to cause secondary ionisation. At higher
voltage, the secondary electrons, in turn, cause tertiary ionisations and hence count rate
increases. Proportional counters works in this region.

Limited proportionality region - At this potential, the growth of one avalanche tries to prevent the
growth of other avalanches, so with further increase in potential, the two curves of Alpha and Beta
particle meets.

Geiger-Muller Region - In this region, the total number of number of ions produced is
independent of the number of primary ions and hence independent of the type and energy of the
incident radiation. The count rate for both Alpha and Beta particle is same. The count rate almost
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 remains constant, but has a slight rise with increase in potential. The GM Counter works in this
region.

Continuous discharge region - In this region there is a perpetual discharge. Due to emission of
UV photons during the avalanche, fresh photoelectrons will be liberated from the cathode surface,
which will further cause avalanches and thus there is a continuous discharge.

Q16. Can a GM counter distinguish between particles with different energies? Can it also
distinguish between Alpha and Beta particles?
Ans: No, it cannot distinguish between the particles with di erent energies because the pulse
height in the Geiger-Muller Region is independent of the primary ionisation caused by the incident
particle.
No, it cannot distinguish between alpha and beta particles because, the pulse heigh for both
Alpha and Beta particles are the same in the Geiger-Muller region.

Q17. Why is the count rate measured in the plateau region?

Ans: The count rate remains constant with the applied voltage only in the plateau region. So, the
measurement of current pulses created due to particles coming into the GM tube can be counted.
In other regions such as proportional region and continuous discharge regions, the count rate
changes with the applied voltage so these regions cannot be used for counting the number of
particles entering the GM tube.

Q18. Does the operating voltage from the GM plateau characteristics changes with the change
of radioactive source in the experiment.
Ans: No, the operating voltage as determined from the GM plateau characteristics is independent
of the source used but is dependent on the Build of the GM counter. However, with changes of
the source, the count rate will de nitely change.

Q19 What do you mean by range of Beta particle?

Ans: It is the maximum distance that a Beta particle can travel through the medium.

Q20. Write the beta decay equation of the source used.

Ans:
Here I have given the equation for Cobalt 60 only.
For di erent radioactive sources used in the experiment, please
refer to internet.

Q21. What do you mean by Half life?

Ans: It is the time required for the radioactive nuclei to decay to one-half of their original number.
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 Q22. What is the unit of activity of a radioactive nuclei?
Ans: The S.I. unit for activity is Becquerel (Bq)
1 Bq = 1 disintegration per second
Another unit that is commonly used is Curie (Ci)
1 Ci = 3.7 x 1010 Bq

Di erences between β − and β + decay

In β − decay, an unstable nucleus decays by emission of electron and an antineutrino.
• It occurs in nuclei with high neutron to proton ratio.
• The mass number A remains the same but the atomic number Z increases by 1
A A −
Z X ⟶Z+1 Y + e + ve
• A neutron of the unstable nuclei decays to proton, electron and antineutrino.
n ⟶ p + e − + ve

In β + decay, an unstable nucleus decays by emission of positron and a neutrino.

• It occurs in nuclei with high proton to neutron ratio.
• The mass number A remains the same but the atomic number Z decreases by 1
A A +
Z X ⟶Z−1 Y + e + ve
• A proton of the unstable nuclei decays to neutron, positron and neutrino.
p ⟶ n + e + + ve

Decay Scheme
The process of radioactivity decay is often
described by a visual representation called
decay scheme. In a given decay the vertical
axis represents the energy and the horizontal
axis represents atomic number. The isotope,
from which the decay originates, is displayed
at the top and is referred to as parent
nucleus. The parent nucleus looses energy
when it decays; hence the products of the
decay, referred to as daughter nuclei, are
displayed at the lower energy level.

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