On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 12:00 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: I have a Geiger counter and a smoke alarm. When the detector is right in > front > of the Am241 pellet it rapidly registers a high count. Put the detector > behind > the PC board on which the circuit was built, but at a closer distance to > the > pellet, and it registers nothing. So much for calculations showing that > lots of > alpha particles would readily be detected. >
Nice sanity check. The next thing to check would be to put your alpha source in heavy water. :) 1. Without the PC board interposed. 2. With the PC board interposed. But note that 5 MeV is a lot lower than 23 MeV. Can you obtain a more energetic alpha source? Am I right in assuming that heavy water is more likely to give rise to secondary neutrons by way of 4He(d,np)4He spallation and d(d,n)3He secondary reactions than deuterated palladium? Eric
