Electro-precipitation of actinides on boron-doped diamond thin films for solid sources preparation for high-resolution alpha-particle spectrometry
Résumé
In this work, we investigate a novel approach to prepare high-performance alpha-particle solid sources fabricated on diamond thin support layers, offering the properties of diamond such as a low-Z material with corrosion and mechanical hardness. As-prepared solid sources onto boron-doped-diamond (BDD) substrate exhibited high performance of the autoradiography and spectroscopic resolution at the level of other more conventional materials such as stainless steel. A straightforward precipitation process in the Na2SO4 or NaNO3 simple electrolytes under mild experimental conditions with a low current of several mA.cm−2 were successfully developed onto BDD substrates for deposition of single 241Am as well as 239Pu, 241Am, and 244Cm mixed radionuclides. The results demonstrate that solid sources deposited onto such BDD substrates can match the performance of those prepared onto stainless steel substrates with excellent uniformity and high-resolution spectroscopy, together combining the robustness, chemical resilience, and X-ray transparence of the diamond. Alpha-particle spectra exhibiting a low full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 12.5 keV at the energy of 5.485 MeV (241Am) could be practically obtained for BDD substrates.
Mots clés
diamond
thin film
corrosion
mechanical hardness
boron
doping
autoradiography
nuclear instrumentation
instrumentation
spectroscopic resolution
precipitation process
Na2SO4
NaNO3
electrolyte
deposition
241Am
239Pu
244Cm
radionuclide
uniformity
high-resolution spectroscopy
spectrometry
robustness
chemical resilience
X-ray transparence
spectrum analysis
Radiochemistry
radioactivity
ionizing radiation
alpha-rays
alpha spectrometry
alpha-particle solide source
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