KJM 5900 Exercise 5: Neutron activation of silver.

Return to: KJM 5900 Exercise Page
 

Introduction

In this exercise you are going to irradiate silver with neutrons. Then you will use a gamma detector to measure the decay curve of the activated silver. By using different irradiation times the exercise will high-light basic principles behind nuclear reactions.

Learning goals:

  1. You shall understand how neutrons can induce radioactivity in stable materials.
  2. You shall be able to separate components in a decay curve which have different half lives.
  3. You shall understand how the induced radioactivity is a function of both half life and irradiation time. I.e. you shall understand in-growth curves.
The theory behind this exercise you can find here: In English and Norwegian.
 

Preparations

Before you can start, we want to make sure you understand what will be going on. Therefore you are required to submit a pre-lab report where you answer some questions and do some calculations related to what you will be doing in the remote controlled laboratory. We have prepared a list of question and exercises you need to do. Answer these in writing and submit them as an attachment to e-mail to your supervisor. When they are corrected and approved you can start the actual laboratory exercise.
 

The Remote Controlled Laboratory Exercise

Link to the virtual instrument interface for the remote controlled lab: http://sievert.uio.no/lab4.html.

Before you start look through this slide show. It explains how to use the remote controlled laboratory. If you are unable to run the slide show or want a printout, you can download the slides as a PDF file.

Picture of the VI interface (how it looks like on your screen): JPEG file.

Procedure:

Prepared counting forms and logarithmic plots for this exercise:

Journal

Yes, you should write one! Use the pre-lab report as a staring point and report on your experiment and results. The report should be submitted not later than 3 days after you perform the experiment.

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Last updated 7. October 2004 by Jon Petter Omtvedt