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In this study, various detector configurations have been investigated in order to explore the optimal condition for decay rate measurements of radioactive samples using gamma spectroscopy technique. A limitation of detecting low energy gamma rays from decaying radioactive nuclei, is the Compton background which can be significantly reduced by rejecting Compton scattered events through active Bismuth germanate (BGO) shielding. On the other hand, for a CLOVER detector without BGO shielding, one can place the radioactive samples very close to the detector for enhancing geometrical efficiency. A single crystal High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector can also be used for decay rate measurements. In order to measure the decay rate of nuclei decaying via gamma emission with reasonable intensity, optimal close geometry options have been investigated for various HPGe detector configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a Monte Carlo program has been developed to simulate the response function of the NaI(Tl) detector with all features for Co and Cs and to investigate the effects of detector housing material on response function. The pulse height spectra in a 2″ × 2″ NaI(Tl) detector due to these gamma ray sources have been measured. Comparison of the experimentally obtained and simulated spectra shows that there is good agreement between both spectra. Energy distributions of gamma photons that generate the backscattering peak in the response function were obtained and the contribution of single, double and multiple Compton scattering events to these distributions was investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]