A Prototype of LaBr3:Ce in situ Gamma-Ray Spectrometer for Marine Environmental Monitoring

TL;DR

This paper presents a LaBr3:Ce-based in situ gamma-ray spectrometer prototype with improved energy resolution and detection efficiency for marine environmental monitoring, demonstrating superior performance over NaI detectors.

Contribution

The development of a LaBr3:Ce scintillator-based in situ gamma-ray spectrometer with enhanced resolution and efficiency for marine monitoring applications.

Findings

Energy response is linear with 2.6% resolution at 662 keV.

Detection efficiency for 137Cs is 0.288 cps/(Bq/L), close to Monte Carlo simulation.

MDAC for 137Cs is 0.78 Bq/L, better than NaI(Tl) spectrometers.

Abstract

A prototype of LaBr3:Ce in situ gamma-ray spectrometer for marine environmental monitoring is developed and applied for in situ measurement. A 3-inch LaBr3:Ce scintillator is used in the detector, and a digital pulse process electronics is chosen as the pulse height analyzer. For this prototype, the energy response of the spectrometer is linear and the energy resolution of 662keV is 2.6% (much better than NaI). With the measurement of the prototype in a water tank filled with 137Cs, the detect efficiency for 137Cs is (0.288 0.01)cps/(Bq/L), which is close to the result of Monte Carlo simulation, 0.283cps/(Bq/L). With this measurement, the MDAC for 137Cs in one hour has been calculated to 0.78Bq/L, better than that of NaI(Tl) in-situ gamma spectrometer, which is ~1.0Bq/L.