Gamma-rays attenuation of zircons from Cambodia and South Africa at different energies: A new technique for identifying the origin of gemstone

摘要

In this work, the gamma-rays interaction properties of zircons from Cambodia and South Africa have been studied. The densities of Cambodian and South African's zircons are 4.6716 + 0.0040 g/cm~3 and 4.5505 ± 0.0018 g/cm~3, respectively. The mass attenuation coefficient and the effective atomic number of gemstones were measured with the gamma-ray in energies range 223-662 keV using the Compton scattering technique. The mass attenuation coefficients of both zircons decreased with the increasing of gamma-rays energies. The different mass attenuation coefficients between the two zircons observed at gamma-ray energies below 400 keV are attributed to the differences in the photoelectric interaction. The effective atomic number of zircons was decreased with the increasing of gamma-ray energies and showed totally different values between the Cambodia and South Africa sources. The origins of the two zircons could be successfully identified by the method based on gamma-rays interaction with matter with advantage of being a non-destructive testing.