Practical gamma-ray spectrometry - Second Edition

Dr. Gordon Gilmore

Practical gamma-ray spectrometry (Gilmore and Hemingway) was published by John Wiley & Sons in March 1995, as the only book currently on the market which looks at gamma-ray spectrometry from a laboratory practice point of view.

This book has now been updated and, because of contractual difficulties surrounding the untimely death of John Hemingway in late 2005, has now been published under the sole authorship of Gordon Gilmore. As before, the whole of the gamma-ray detection process is covered and the book concludes with a fault-finding guide and a look at the issue of quality control in gamma-ray spectrometry. Throughout the text mathematics is kept to a minimum and no previous knowledge of nuclear matters of instrumentation is assumed. Many of the sections have been updated and extended and there are two new chapters - 'Gamma Spectrometry of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials - NORM' and 'Applications'. Data in the Appendixes have been brought up-to-date and a Glossary of terms relevant to gamma spectrometry has been created.

The Second Edition will not be available directly from Nuclear Training Services Ltd. Quite simply, the principal of the company is attempting to slide down the road to complete retirement and will be unvailable to handle book sales for much of the year. The Wiley website and Amazon will, I am sure be more than capable of filling the gap.

To coincide with the release of Practical Gamma-Ray Spectrometry - Edition 2, we created a new website called simply gammaspectrometry.co.uk. This will carry a range of material relevant to the book: a number of data pages, spreadsheets (some used to create diagrams in the book), example spectra and test spectra that are referred to in the book, a list of corrections to book, and more.

Chapter 1: Radioactive Decay and the Origin of Gamma and X-Radiation
Chapter 2: Interactions of Gamma-Radiation with Matter
Chapter 3: Semiconductor Detectors for Gamma-Ray Spectrometry
Chapter 4: Electronics for Gamma-Ray Spectrometry
Chapter 5: Statistics of Counting
Chapter 6: Resolution: Origins and Control
Chapter 7: Spectrometer Calibration
Chapter 8: True Coincidence Summing
Chapter 9: Computer Analysis of Gamma-Ray Spectra
Chapter 10: Scintillation Spectrometry
Chapter 11: Choosing and Setting-up a Detector, and Checking its Specifications
Chapter 12: Troubleshooting
Chapter 13: Low Count-Rate Systems
Chapter 14: High Count-Rate Systems
Chapter 15: Ensuring Quality in Gamma-Ray Spectrometry
Chapter 16: Gamma-Ray Spectrometry of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM)
Chapter 17: Applications
Appendix A: Sources of Information
Appendix B: Gamma-ray and X-ray standards for Detector Calibration
Appendix C: X-Rays Routinely Found in Gamma Spectra
Appendix D: Gamma-Ray Energies in the Detector Background and the Environment
Appendix E: Chemical Names, Symbols and Relative Atomic Masses of the Elements
Glossary
Index

ISBN 978-0-470-86196-7

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Practical gamma-ray spectrometry - Second Edition

Dr. Gordon Gilmore

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