August 2007

Conference Paper

Rare Isotope Discoveries with Digital Electronics

By:
Grzywacz, Robert K; Gross, Carl J; Korgul, A.; Liddick, S.; Mazzocchi, C.; Page, R.; Rykaczewski, Krzysztof P
Journal Name:
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms
Page Number:
1103-1106
Volume:
261
Issue Number:
1-2
Publication Date:
August 2007
Conference Name:
CAARI 2006: 19th Int'l Conf. on the Application of Accelerators in Research and Industry
Conference Location:
Fort worth, Texas, United States of America
Conference Sponsor:
University of North Texas/Sandia National Laboratories

Abstract

The discovery of the new isotopes 109Xe and 105Te was enabled by the application of a new experimental method using selective pulse shape storage from silicon detectors with digital signal processing electronics. Essential data processing algorithms were developed, which are able to find unique nuclear decay signatures, such as overlapping alpha decay induced signals. An experiment using this method led to the simultaneous detection of isotopes with dramatically different half lives T1/2(109Xe)=13(2) ms and T1/2(105Te)=620(70) ns. The ground state decay energies have been measured to be E�� (109Xe)=4062(7) keV and E��(105Te)=4703(5) keV via observation of correlated events in the decay chain 109Xe��105Te��101Sn.

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