Abstract: A spectroscopic method to rapidly measure the presence of plutonium in soils, filters, smears, and glass waste forms by measuring the uranium L-shell x-ray emissions associated with the decay of plutonium. In addition, the technique can simultaneously acquire spectra of samples and automatically analyze them for the amount of americium and .gamma.-ray emitting activation and fission products present. The samples are counted with a large area, thin-window, n-type germanium spectrometer which is equally efficient for the detection of low-energy x-rays (10-2000 keV), as well as high-energy .gamma. rays (>1 MeV). A 8192- or 16,384 channel analyzer is used to acquire the entire photon spectrum at one time. A dual-energy, time-tagged pulser, that is injected into the test input of the preamplifier to monitor the energy scale, and detector resolution. The L x-ray portion of each spectrum is analyzed by a linear-least-squares spectral fitting technique. The .gamma.

Abstract: An improved system for gamma-ray spectroscopy characterized by an interface module that controls the injection of electronic pulses as well as separation logic that enables storage of pulser events in a region of the spectrum of a multichannel analyzer distinct from the region reserved for storage of gamma-ray events. The module accomplishes this by tagging pulser events (high or low) injected into the amplification circuitry, adding an offset to the events so identified at the time the events are at the output of the analog to digital converter, and storing such events in the upper portion of the spectrum stored in the multichannel analyzer. The module can be adapted for use with existing gamma-ray spectroscopy equipment to provide for automatic analyses of radioisotopes.