Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata 9 th – 23rd March 2010

Geiger Characteristic & Gamma Absorption

Harsh Purwar (07MS – 76)
3 rd Year, Integrated M.S.
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata

Experiment No. – 4
Nuclear & Particle Physics Laboratory (PH – 325)

Objectives of the experiment:

 To study the characteristics of a Geiger-Muller counter.
 To study the gamma ray absorption by an aluminum sheet as a function of its thickness.

Introduction and Theory:

A Geiger counter, also called a Geiger-Muller counter, is a type of particle detector that measures ionizing
radiation. They are notable for being used to detect if objects emit nuclear radiation.
A G-M counter consists of an ionization chamber which usually is a hollow cylindrical closed vessel made
up of lead with an interior coating of graphite acting as anode and a thin tungsten wire placed coaxially act
as cathode. The potential difference between the two electrodes is supplied from outside and is usually
from a few hundred volts to a few thousand volts commonly known as high voltage. The cylindrical
chamber is filled with an inert gas usually argon or neon which interact with the gamma rays coming in
from one end of the tube and produce electrons of different energies. There is another gas or a volatile
substance CH4 or ethyl alcohol used as a quencher (explained later). The incoming gamma interacts with
the filled inert gas (matter) in mainly three ways:
1. Photoelectric effect: The incoming gamma of energy of a few MeV’s hits an electron in an atomic
shell with the binding energy of a few eV’s resulting in the emission of the electron from the atom.
During the process approximately all of the energy of the incoming gamma is transferred to the
emitted electron. According to the energy conservation we have,
𝐾. 𝐸. = ℎ𝜈 − 𝐵𝑒
where ℎ𝜈 is in MeV’s, 𝐵𝑒 is in eV’s which means that the kinetic energy of the emitted electrons
are in MeV’s. The emitted electrons are also called as the photoelectrons.

2. Compton Effect: Compton scattering is a type of scattering that X-rays and 𝛾-rays undergo in
matter. The inelastic scattering of photons in matter results in a decrease in energy (increase in
wavelength) of an X-ray or gamma photon, called the Compton Effect. Part of the energy of the
X/gamma ray is transferred to a scattering electron, which recoils and is ejected from its atom, and
the rest of the energy is taken by the scattered photon.

3. Pair Production: Pair production refers to the creation of an elementary particle and its anti-
particle, usually from a photon (or another neutral boson). This is allowed, provided there is enough
energy available to create the pair – at least the total rest mass energy of the two particles – and
that the situation allows both energy and momentum to be conserved. All other conserved
quantum numbers of the produced particles must sum to zero, thus the created particles shall have
opposite values of each quantum number.
The sources we used do not produce gamma of such high energies and so the probability of
production of an electron via this mechanism is very less.

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Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata 9 th – 23rd March 2010
Now these ions produced by the above mechanisms are accelerated towards the electrodes due to the
applied high voltage across them.

Gas Amplification: While moving towards the electrodes the ions suffer repeated collisions with the atoms
in the tube. If the potential difference (applied high voltage) across the electrodes in the detector is
sufficiently high then the primary ions (produced directly by the incoming gamma) in the tube may gain an
amount of energy high enough to produce another ion pair which will also move towards the opposite
electrodes. These in their turn may produce further ionization by collision. All the secondary ions thus
produced add up with the primary ions and thus an amplified current is recorded by the detector. This
process is called gas amplification.

Counter Characteristic: If a G-M counter tube is exposed to a source of constant radiation intensity and the
rate of counting is recorded as a function of the voltage on the counter tube, a graph is obtained which is
known as the characteristic curve for the counter. The obtained curve is attached in the Results section.
When the voltage is low the counter operates in the ionization chamber region where there is
approximately no gas amplification. The voltage pulse is small and the associated electronic circuit (like a
discriminator) will not be able to record and count these pulses. So unless the voltage across the counter
tube exceeds a certain minimum value known as threshold voltage no counts will be recorded.
As the voltage is increased over the threshold value the counting rate increases gradually since the gas
amplification now sets in and the output pulse size increases gradually. This is the region of proportional
counting where more and more of the low energy particles are counted until Geiger region is reached.
In the Geiger region, the counting rate becomes almost constant as all the primary events produced in the
counter are recorded, irrespective of the energy. This region is also called Plateau region of the counter.

Geiger Discharge: Because of the cylindrical geometry of the G-M tube the electric field near the surface of
the central wire is very high. The avalanche called Townsend avalanche created due to this high field near
the central wire by a single original electron can now trigger a second avalanche at some other point within
the G-M tube. This gives rise to what is known as the Geiger discharge. The second avalanche is triggered
due to the emission of ultraviolet (visible) photons during the de-excitation of the excited gas molecules
within the first avalanche. These photons on reaching the cathode surface emit photoelectrons, which
while moving towards the central wire, initiates the second avalanche. This second avalanche can then
initiate a third avalanche which can further initiate the fourth and so on by exactly the same mechanism.
Thus in Geiger discharge, a single electron formed in the initial ionizing event produces repeated number
of avalanches within a very short period of time ~1𝜇𝑠 . These give rise to a dense envelope of electron-
ion pairs immediately surrounding the central wire throughout its entire length, independent of the
position of the initial ionizing event. The electrons are very quickly collected by the anode wire. The
positive ions being heavy do not move appreciably during this time and remain in the immediate vicinity of
the central wire, producing a space charge sheath surrounding the former. This reduces the field near the
central wire which lowers the gas multiplication, ultimately stopping the process of Geiger discharge. For a
given voltage on the anode, the voltage pulse produced at the anode is determined by the space charge
collected around the anode wire to stop the discharge. It does not depend on the size of the primary
ionization and is determined by the applied voltage.

Quenching of the Discharge: As mentioned above the positive charges being heavier move slowly as
compared to the electrons and takes about 10−4 s to reach the cathode. In the process an amount of
energy 𝐸𝑖 − 𝑊 (ionization energy minus the work function of the cathode), usually in the form of a UV
photon is liberated. If this exceeds 𝑊, an electron from the cathode surface may be ejected by its
absorption which then initiates another Geiger discharge. Thus repeated Geiger discharges may be
produced at intervals of 10−4 s which must be stopped or quenched for the counter to operate properly.

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Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata 9 th – 23rd March 2010
Usually some organic vapour (like ethyl alcohol or methane) is mixed with the inert counter gas for this
purpose. Then, during the travel of the positive ions of both the gas atoms (𝐴𝑟 + and organic molecules)
towards the cathode, the argon ions are neutralized by collisions with the neutral alcohol molecules which
become ionized in the process. This happens because argon has a higher ionization potential than ethyl
alcohol. The energy liberated in the neutralization of the argon ions (15.7 eV) is sufficient to ionize the
alcohol molecules which require only 11.3 eV of energy. The excess energy (4.4 eV) liberated in the form of
UV photon is usually absorbed by the alcohol vapour and hence doesn’t eject any photoelectrons from the
cathode. The positive ions which ultimately reach the cathode are thus mostly the alcohol ions which
dissociate in the process of being neutralized by the capture of electrons from the cathode. This prevents
the emission of the UV photons which would otherwise initiate a second Geiger discharge. Due to the
dissociation of the alcohol molecules the counter has a very limited life. In the halogen quenched counters,
the halogen molecules (eg. Br2) dissociate into the halogen atoms which again recombine. So these
counters have very long lives.

Gamma Absorption: As we know that the gamma rays are electromagnetic radiations of very short
wavelength (high frequency and energy) as compared to the inter-atomic distance. While passing through
the matter gamma ray photons are either completely absorbed or are deflected (scattered) from their
path, usually at large angles. For both these reasons the intensity of the collimated beam is reduced as it
passes through the matter.
Let 𝐼 be the intensity of a collimated beam of mono-energetic gamma rays falling on a slab of material of
thickness 𝑑𝑥 as shown in the figure. The diminution in the intensity 𝑑𝐼 is found to be proportional to the
initial intensity 𝐼 and to 𝑑𝑥, so that we can write,
𝑑𝐼 = −𝜇𝐼𝑑𝑥
On integration we get,
𝐼 = 𝐼0 𝑒 −𝜇𝑥
𝜇 is called the linear attenuation coefficient or linear absorption coefficient. If 𝑥 is in 𝑚𝑚 then 𝜇 is in
𝑚𝑚−1 .
Now if the thickness required to reduce the intensity to half the initial value is 𝑑 then we have,
𝐼0
= 𝐼0 𝑒 −𝜇𝑑
2
ln 2
⇒𝑑=
𝜇
𝑑 is known as the half-value thickness.

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Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata 9 th – 23rd March 2010
Experimental Setup:

Figure 1: Schematic diagram representing the experiment setup.

Procedure:
 A gamma source, Cs-137 or Thorium was placed in the lower compartment of the G-M tube close to
the tube so that maximum 𝛾 rays enter the tube and get recorded.
 The number of runs was set to 1 and the time of each run was set to 10 sec.
 Starting from 0 volt and taking appropriate steps, high voltage was varied up to the breakdown
region or discharge region were the number of counts increase to a very high values due to the
discharge of the gas present inside the G-M tube.
 Number of counts in 10 sec was noted along with the high voltage to give the characteristic curve
for gamma of the detector.
 The source was then changed to a stronger and mono-energetic (in our case Cs-137) for the second
part of the experiment which is to study the gamma absorption in matter.
 A value for high voltage was chosen in the Geiger region after looking at the characteristic curve. In
our case we chose 800 volts.
 Aluminum sheets of different thicknesses were placed in between the source and the detector one
by one and the number of counts for 60 seconds was recorded for each sheet. For better statistics
we repeat this thrice i.e. number of runs was set to three.
 The recorded data was fitted using a suitable model described in the next section.

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Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata 9 th – 23rd March 2010
Observations/Results:

Table 1: For determination of the characteristic curve of the Geiger-Muller detector.

Obs. No. High Voltage (Volt) 𝜸 counts per 10 sec. 𝜸 counts per sec.
1 0 0 0
2 345 0 0
3 355 10 1
4 360 63 6
5 365 82 8
6 375 81 8
7 380 84 8
8 385 100 10
9 390 102 10
10 400 72 7
11 410 83 8
12 420 99 10
13 430 106 11
14 445 89 9
15 460 96 10
16 480 92 9
17 500 98 10
18 530 102 10
19 560 86 9
20 600 109 11
21 650 97 10
22 680 88 9
23 700 112 11
24 720 95 10
25 750 80 8
26 800 95 10
27 850 89 9
28 880 98 10
29 900 111 11
30 950 98 10
31 1000 110 11
32 1020 100 10
33 1022 112 11
34 1024 117 12
35 1025 143 14
36 1030 173 17
37 1035 153 15
38 1040 214 21
39 1050 163 16
40 1050 167 17
41 1060 264 26
42 1080 458 46
43 1090 2392 239
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Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata 9 th – 23rd March 2010
44 1100 6171 617
45 1120 22358 2236
46 1150 65344 6534
47 1200 108103 10810

Ionization
&
Proportionality
Region Geiger Region (or Plateau region)

Figure 2: Geiger counter characteristic curve.

The gamma ray absorption was studied using aluminum sheets of different thicknesses in Geiger region at
800 volt of high voltage.

Table 2: To study the absorption of gamma rays by Aluminum (Al) sheets of different thicknesses (t).
Thickness of Al sheet Counts in 60 sec. Mean counts per sec.
Obs. No. st nd rd 𝑰
(mm) 1 Run 2 Run 3 Run (𝑰)
𝑰𝟎
1 0.0 1557 1623 1594 𝑰𝟎 = 26.52
2 0.2 887 960 950 15.54 0.586
3 0.6 825 870 827 14.01 0.528
4 1.0 844 872 814 14.06 0.530
5 3.0 821 843 780 13.58 0.512
6 4.5 772 763 816 13.06 0.492
7 5.5 770 789 740 12.77 0.482
8 6.5 747 735 763 12.47 0.470

The above data was fitted using a standard exponential model given by,
𝑦 = 𝑎𝑒 𝑏𝑡
The fitted curve is as shown below and the fitted value of the parameters 𝑎 and 𝑏 are,
𝑎 = 14.8, 𝑏 = −0.02742 𝑚𝑚−1

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Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata 9 th – 23rd March 2010

𝑦 = 14.8 exp −0.02742𝑥

Figure 3: Mean counts per second versus Thickness of the aluminum sheet in mm.

Conclusion:
 The Geiger-Muller counter characteristics were obtained and are attached above in the
Observations/Results section.
 The gamma ray absorption was studied using a mono-energetic source Cs-137 (𝐸 = 0.68 MeV) by
aluminum sheet. The intensity of gamma absorbed by the aluminum sheet of thickness 𝑥 is given
by,
𝐼0 − 𝐼 = 𝐼0 1 − exp −𝜇𝑥
where 𝜇 is called the linear absorption or attenuation coefficient.
 The linear attenuation coefficient of gamma ray absorption of energy nearly equal to 0.68 MeV by
aluminum sheets was found to be 0.027 mm-1 or 0.27 cm-1 by fitting an exponential model to the
observed data as explained above.
 The half value thickness 𝑑 for aluminum can also be computed using the formula explained in the
Theory section which is,
ln 2
𝑑= = 2.53 𝑐𝑚
𝜇

References:

1. Ghoshal, S. N. Gamma Rays, Detection of Nuclear Radiations and their Measurements. Nuclear Physics.
New Delhi : S. Chand & Company Ltd., 2010, 7, pp. 187-196, 237-252.

2. Supplied reading material and Users Manual.

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