First measurement of the beta spectrum of 241Pu with a cryogenic detector

M Loidl; M Rodrigues; B Censier; S Kowalski; X Mougeot; P Cassette; T Branger; D Lacour

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2009.11.054

First measurement of the beta spectrum of 241Pu with a cryogenic detector

Appl Radiat Isot. 2010 Jul-Aug;68(7-8):1454-7; discussion 1457-8. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2009.11.054. Epub 2009 Dec 3.

Authors

M Loidl¹, M Rodrigues, B Censier, S Kowalski, X Mougeot, P Cassette, T Branger, D Lacour

Affiliation

¹ LNE-Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel, CEA Saclay, DRT/LIST, Gif-sur-Yvette, France. [email protected]

PMID: 20036567
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2009.11.054

Abstract

The LNE-LNHB is developing metallic magnetic calorimeters, a specific type of cryogenic detectors, for beta spectrometry. The aim is the determination of the shape factors of beta spectra. Our latest detector has been designed to measure the spectrum of (241)Pu, a pure beta emitter with an endpoint energy of 20.8 keV. In this paper, the detection principle of metallic magnetic calorimeters is explained and a detailed description is given of the realization of the detector enclosing a (241)Pu source inside the detector absorber. A spectrum resulting from our first measurement is shown and compared with a theoretical spectrum.