Radiation leaking into the surrounding environment has a detrimental effect on the human body, so it should be evaluated first to prevent it.
The most considerable radiation affecting the human body is gamma rays. This is because the penetrability of gamma rays is the strongest of all other kinds of radiation. Therefore, gamma dose measurement is of paramount importance for its dosimetry.
Radiation detectors for environmental radiation monitoring usually include scintillation detectors, ionization chambers, and automatic discharge counters. Among them, automatic discharge counter tubes are widely used for environmental radiation monitor fabrication because of their low cost and simple measurement circuitry. However, the automatic discharge counter tubes manufactured at home and abroad have the disadvantage of narrow energy band for dose estimation and low counting rate.
Pak Yong, a researcher at the Institute of Analysis, has designed a new environmental radiation monitor to measure radioactive contamination and environmental radiation.
By applying the time-count conversion method, he eliminated the effect of dead time in the GM counter tube and extended the counting rate measurement range from 2×103 to 105cells/s.
The proposed monitor enables measurement from 10nSv/h to 200mSv/h using two GM counters with improved properties.