The Range of Gamma Photon
Equipment
Stage, camera holder, source holder, cobalt-60, Minipix-EDU
Procedure
- Launch the Pixet Basic software and modify settings to the following:
- Min Level: 0
- Max Level: 100
- Measurement Mode: Tracking
- Frames: 600
- Exposure: 1 s
- Sum: check
- Color Map: Hot
- Mount the MiniPix EDU camera and cobalt on the stage.
- Keep a distance of 2 cm between the camera and source and click on the play button to collect data.
- Repeat the same experiment with distance between camera and source to be 4 cm, 6 cm, 8 cm, 10 cm, and 12 cm.
Results
- Make a table for the distance between camera and source (x) and kinetic energy of gamma photons (Ek) (Table 1).
Table 1: The observed energy of gamma photon with increasing distance - The standard deviation of Ek is 0.82 which is very insignificant compared to the energy loss of alpha particles.
Conclusion
- The photons retain most of their energy until it’s lost in interaction through the photoelectric effect or by creating electron-positron pairs or by Compton scattering.