Study of Radiation Interaction Mechanisms of Different Nuclear Detectors

In this paper, an attempt has been made to describe the radiation interaction mechanisms of nuclear detectors. There are lots of radioactive detectors available in the field of radiation detection and measurements instruments/systems such as Geguier Muller (GM) Tube, Scintillation Counter, High Purity Germanium (HPGe) and so on. Each of these detectors have different and distinct radiation interaction mechanisms and detecting principle for processing each type of radiation measurement (qualititative and quantitative).The interaction mechanisms of these detectors are governed by generation of ions (positive and negative) in case of GM tube; the photo-electric effect, Compton scattering and pair production for Scintillation detector and HPGe along with diode principle. The special feature of this diode is a constant current generator depending on the energy of the photon deposition in the detector. The characteristics of these interaction mechanisms have been presented along with intensity of measurements, efficiency and detector resolution (FWHM).