Studying of characteristics of the HPGe detector for radioactivity measurements

The photopeak efficiency, the peak to valley ratio, the energy resolution and the minimum detectable activity of a HPGe detector were determined experimentally for 13.81- 1212.95 keV photon energy by using Am super(241), Ba super(133), Cs super(137) and Eu super(152). The photopeak efficiency was studied at the geometry with the source to detector distance of 5 cm, 10 cm, 15 cm and 20 cm. Also, it was determined theoretically. It is shown that full energy peak efficiency decreases with increases in gamma ray energy. Also, the HPGe detector offers very good resolution. This makes it a suitable detector for x- and gamma ray spectroscopy and health physics research.