Collisional, radiative and total electron interaction in compound semiconductor detectors and solid state nuclear track detectors: Effective atomic number and electron density

摘要

Effective atomic numbers, Z(eff) and electron densities, N-e are widely used for characterization of interaction processes in radiation related studies. A variety of detectors are employed to detect different types of radiations i.e. photons and charged particles. In the present work, some compound semiconductor detectors (CSCD) and solid state nuclear track detectors (SSNTD) were investigated with respect to the partial as well as total electron interactions. Z(eff) and N-e of the given detectors were calculated for collisional, radiative and total electron interactions in the kinetic energy region 10 key(-1) GeV. Maximum values of Z(eff) and N-e were observed at higher kinetic energies of electrons. Significant variations in Z(eff) and N-e up to 20-25% were noticed for the detectors, GaN, ZnO, Amber and CR-39 for total electron interaction. Moreover, the obtained Z(eff) and N-e for electrons were compared to those obtained for photons in the entire energy region. Significant variations in Z(eff) were also noted not only for photons (up to approximate to 40% for GaN) but also between photons and electrons (up to approximate to 60% for CR39) especially at lower energies. Except for the lower energies, Z(eff) and N-e keep more or less constant values for the given materials. The energy regions where Z(eff) and N-e keep constant clearly show the availability of using these parameters for characterization of the materials with respect to the radiation interaction processes. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.