Estimation of effective atomic numbers of some solutions for photon energy absorption in the energy region 0.2-1.5 MeV: An alternative method

The effective atomic numbers (Z(PEAeff)), which are used to describe the composite materials in terms of equivalent elements, have been estimated in some solutions for photon energy absorption in the energy region 0.2-1.5 MeV. Since the mass energy absorption (mu(en)/rho) and mass attenuation coefficients (mu/rho) remain more or less the same for any given material in the photon energy region 0.2-1.5 MeV where Compton scattering is the main dominant photon interaction process, semi-empirical relations including both mu(en)/rho and mu/rho have been constituted as a function of energy. These parameters were then used to obtain Z(PEAeff) with the help of a Z-wise interpolation procedure. The results were compared with the experimental as well as other theoretical estimations wherever possible. Consequently, the present method is found to be readily applicable to the given solutions in order to estimate accurate values of Z(PEAeff) for which it is not possible to directly obtain experimentally using the conventional gamma spectrometry system. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.