| StoatMaster 2004-10-04, 2:21 am |
| Linear attenuation co-efficient.
You can also use half-value thickness.
Any alphas would be stopped by a sheet of paper.
Its not so cut and dried with beta or x-ray/gamma (which are
physically the same). The thickness will govern the degree of
attenuation but an equal factor would be the energy of the incident
beam of radiation.
Another thing to take into account is fact that the absorber may also
produce radiation due to radiation incident upon it.
This is particularly pertinent with beta radiation where a thick layer
of low density material is more effective than a thin layer of high
density material.
For instance a thick layer of perspex is a better protecter against
beta radiation than lead as the process of absorbing the beta energy
in lead will itself produce lead x-rays.
On Sun, 26 Sep 2004 10:51:08 GMT, marg allison
<marg.allison@newspace.net> wrote:
>I'm hoping someone here can help me with some basic jargon. How would a
>scientist verbalise the ability of materials to attenuate radiation, i.e.
>what is the measurment unit and what would be typical values for 3mm
>thick aluminium and 2mm thick steel against alpha, beta, gamma and
>x-rays?
>
>Thanks in advance
>m.a.
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