High-performance Mössbauer spectroscopy: Criteria, possibilities, limitations

Increasing attention is being paid to non-conventional Mossbauer methods in view of the extension of Mossbauer Spectroscopy (MS) to a broadening field of applications. With such long-lasting experiments the shortening of the measuring time required for a given statistical significance is of major practical importance. It is shown that the statistical utility rateu allows one to determine which experimental parameters have a primary role, and it also enables sucessive optimization. It is pointed out for various MS measurements that the strategy for improving the experimental performance is strongly dependent on the given problem. As examples, time-differential Mossbauer measurements and conv…

Problems of electron detection in Depth-Selective Conversion Electron Mössbauer Spectroscopy

Applications of Depth-Selective Conversion Electron Mossbauer Spectroscopy (DCEMS) are limited by the long measuring times needed for collecting sufficient data statistics. To shorten the recording time, the background should be reduced and the detection efficiency for conversion electrons should be improved. For57Co/57Fe DCEMS, systematic studies were performed to investigate the origin, shape, and structure of the background components in DCEMS data distributions for various samples using channeltrons and low-noise scintillation counters as electron detectors.

Time-differential Mössbauer emission spectroscopy: Development of a new spectrometer and first results

A spectrometer for time-differential Mossbauer spectroscopy was developed with a high count rate capability, a good time resolution, and a flexible data handling. Chemical and physical aftereffects following the57Co decay were studied within the cobalt doped systems Turnbulls blue and ZnS.

Icems and dcems study of Fe layers evaporated onto Al and Si

Thin layers of57Fe (2.5 nm, 10 nm and 70 nm thickness), vacuum evaporated onto Al and Si plates, have been investigated by conversion electron Mossbauer spectroscopy (CEMS). The measurements were performed employing both a proportional counter and a channeltron for conventional and ultrahigh-vacuum integral CEMS (UHV-ICEMS) studies, respectively, and a channeltron for depth-selective CEMS (DCEMS). The phase analysis of the layers on base of experimental results has indicated the presence of metallic iron and one or two iron compounds, ascribed to iron reaction products formed with the residual gas during evaporation. These products are most likely rather stable iron nitrides, are more or le…

Low noise scintillation detectors with a P-47 thin layer screen for electrons of several keV

Abstract The applicability of a low-noise scintillation detector (ScD) for the registration of electrons of several keV energy has been studied employing photomultipliers (PM) of different types and sizes. With the application of a sedimented P-47 scintillation screen, the values of the low-energy sensitivity limit and those of the light conversion coefficient were determined as about 2.7–4.7 keV and 2.8–6.6 photoelectrons/keV, respectively, for the set of PM's (Philips-Valvo XP 2020, Philips-Valvo XP 2052, Philips-Valvo XP 2972, EMI 9124a) studied. It is concluded that such scintillation detectors might be used advantageously as electron counters in the range of E > 5 keV. Applications bel…

Investigations on the photoelectron conversion efficiency of NaI(Tl) counters

Abstract The photoelectron conversion efficiency of NaI(Tl) detectors has been measured by counting single photoelectron pulses of the detector output pulse train on a very fast storage oscilloscope. This result is compared with those obtained by the measurement of the achievable time resolution using the first photoelectron triggering technique.

A time-differential Mössbauer emission spectrometer with high efficiency and high time resolution

A high-efficiency, high rate-capability, computer-based measuring setup for Time-Differential Mossbauer Spectroscopy was constructed. Applying NaI(Tl) and plastic scintillators for the detection of the 14.4 keV and 122 keV γ-radiation respectively, a superior timing (2, 3 ns FWHM) was achieved by a “fast-fast-ultra fast” timing method developed for that purpose.

Poster contributions

The effect of energy-dependent detector efficiency in electron spectroscopic methods: XPS, AES and DCEMS

Systematic studies were performed to investigate the distorting effect of the electron energy dependence of the channeltron detector efficiency on the shape of data distributions in electron spectroscopy. In agreement with earlier results for electron energies up to 3 keV, it was found that a virtually energy-independent shape of the electron distribution might be achieved even in a very broad range of electgron energies (up to 15 keV) by appropriate selection of the operational high voltage of a channeltron. However, the efficieny of channeltrons was also found to depend on count rates, indicating one of the principal difficulties in comparing distribution recorded under different experime…