A Detector System for In-Situ Spectrometric Analysis of 241Am and Pu in Soil

This system for quantitative analysis of Pu in soil via 241Am has four 2.5-mm high-purity Ge detectors of 33 cm2 total detecting surface area. These detectors are paralleled by gating circuitry to avoid the degradation of energy resolution associated with electronic output summing. In field tests the system was approximately three times as sensitive as a 70-cm3 Ge(Li) detector and approximately an order of magnitude more sensitive than the FIDLER system.