The system can be used with its associated 32 channels of digital pulse-shape discrimination firmware to separate neutron events from γ-ray events and to explore coincidence phenomena or time-of-flight correlations between these events. In the figure above, part of the system (15 detectors) is shown, courtesy of Elsevier, in use at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA. In this set-up the system was used to record high-order neutron multiplicity events (triples and quadruples events) to investigate the angular distribution of these emissions from spontaneous fission in 252Cf, for safeguards applications.
The broad energy germanium (BEGe™) and small anode germanium (SAGe™) detector systems (shown above) have been used for a variety of trace-level analyses of environmental samples. For example, these systems have been used to assess the abundance of 241Am in soils from contaminated land at legacy nuclear facilities, and to compare this to the contribution from other sources, such as that from the atmospheric nuclear weapons testing activities of the 1950s and 1960s. Trace assay of 241Am can be used to infer minor actinide abundance and can be used to compare to complementary assessment techniques, such as accelerator mass spectrometry.