Homemade X-Ray Spectrometer | XRF - Compton Experiments

[@herzogsbuick]

much can be said about the youtube algorithm, but it brought me here, so i am grateful. subscribed! greetings from alaska!

[@Farben-X]

Sometimes it brings people to strange places, don't forget to check out the other strange video here. stay warm up there

[@bigbangscience3196]

Congrats on your XRF detector! It is certainly convenient to just leave the front scintillator surface exposed to air, thus allowing it to easily detect lower energies (under 12-15 keV). However, the CsI:Ti scintillators are still considered mildly hygroscopic, hence typically requiring encapsulation which will then ruin the ability to detect lower energies unless the front window is made from beryllium...

[@Farben-X]

I wanted beryllium for my detector so bad😵🥲 if only I had been born 50 years ago

[@Drjtherrien]

Very nice! I happened upon a PMT with a NaI(Tl) scintillator already attached and am putting together an XRF myself.

[@Farben-X]

Hey, thanks. NaI has a good resolution, but be careful to the encapsulation and probe wall thickness as it will absorb a lot of low energy rays

[@project-326]

Great video, great results! Perhaps you can include some links in the video description to the version of the Theremino S/W you used and also the PMT interface circuit? The Theremino site is a nightmare to navigate...

[@Farben-X]

@project-326 hi, thanks. Yes, I can relate to that problem, so I added two links. You need to scroll down a bit to reach the schematics

[@vanatoruldeparanormal2126]

Very interesting! Where did you buy that little scintillator?Greetings from Romania!

[@Farben-X]

Hi, I bought it from ost-photonics, they have CsI for very cheap and without enclosure

[@The_electronics_nerd]

nice video but i have a question does this xray spectrometer works witha any meterial like plastic?

[@Farben-X]

Do you mean if it can analyze plastic materials?

[@The_electronics_nerd]

@@Farben-X yes

[@Farben-X]

​@The_electronics_nerd well in some ways it can, as I showed with the compton effect in HDPE, it is possible to determine the effective atomic mass number of the target material. but plastics has some limitation to XRF: being made mostly of carbon and hydrogen atom wich the first has no characteristic xrays being made of 1 electron only, and the second has a Kalpha of 277eV witch is not usable, it is not possible to use direct XRF to study it, but the backscattered spectra of the excitation source can instead be used and, industrially it is done for example to determine the density of a sample and other priorities like the content of a specific contaminants

[@The-One-and-Only100]

Would it be possible to use a radiacode (i would like to do xrf on the go without taking a ton with me)

[@Farben-X]

Yes and no. The latest radio code model, 103g, has a GAGG scintillator, and as shown by others (like @project-326), it is NOT able at all to record energy under 50kev with good resolution (and the app will cutoff at 20keV), at least compared to the previous radio code model, which has a CsI(TI) scintillator like the one I used in my video. The biggest problem you will encounter is that the radiocode plastic shell will attenuate a lot the low energy XRF, and may also cause compton shift as I have shown with HDPE, so if I wanted to buy the rediocode just for XRF, no. Another big problem that is influenced also from the previous one is that acquisition time for the radiocode is really long, so maybe not perfect for mobile apparatus. But If you're going to buy it to do other stuff and as a side experiment try XRF go for it. As I said in the video the transparent window (to x-ray) is really important.

[@The-One-and-Only100]

​@Farben-X I'm just wondering since i already have a radiacode and if I could get some more use with it like xrf great if not still good

[@Farben-X]

@@The-One-and-Only100 do you have the excitation source? I think it will work somehow with heavy elements like silver, and above, but with things like copper with characteristic x-rays at the 5-10kev range the attenuation and flux might be too low to get a quick measurement, you should try. An x-ray tube as a source would help in this case but it would become really bulky.

[@The-One-and-Only100]

@Farben-X project 326 used strontium 90 so I'm currently looking at getting a type 75 geiger counter

[@Farben-X]

​@The-One-and-Only100 do you refer to the backscattered electron vs atomic mass experiment, or to get XRF from strontium electron exciting the sample and making characteristic lines?