Re: tritium x-rays

["USHINO, TOSH" <ushinot@songs.sce.com>]

In response to Les Slaback's comments, I offer the following responses:

>The note as to the energy range of the x-rays was interesting.  Is this 
>based on measurement or a reference?  I always meant to do a measurement but 
>did not get around to it.  But I would have thought the effective x-ray 
>energy would be higher, given the strong energy dependence on beta energy in 
>producing these.
     
     It has been too many years for me remember any details (and couldn't 
     remember if H-3 gas was in beryllium or titinium discs) but... the gas 
     proportional detectors we used didn't have good resolution at that 
     energy range so I guesstimated. Since ave. beta energy is about 1/3 of 
     Emax, H-3 ave.beta energy would be about 6 keV.  I seem to recall that 
     typical bremstruhlung energy was some fraction of incident beta energy 
     (if anybody recalls a rule of thumb, please help me out here). That 
     makes ave. x-ray energy some fraction of beta E.ave. There will be 
     self absorption at lower end to bring the ave. up a bit...so I guessed 
     at 2 - 4 keV.
     
>The note regarding tritium contamination causing interference in the 
>Am-241 measurements was curious, since it would take close to a curie of 
>tritium to produce detectable reading.  A hell-of-a-lot of contamination.
     
     It suprised us, too, because the tritium source fragments we could see 
     were tiny.  We did all kind of tests (alpha & gamma spec.) after that 
     and were able to rule out Am-241.
     
>SLABACK@MICF.NIST.GOV
>...a little risk, like a bit of spice, adds flavor to life

     Regards,
     Tosh Ushino
     SONGS