A Development of directional gamma-ray detector without shield

Kitayama, Yoshiharu  ; Terasaka, Yuta   ; Sato, Yuki  ; Torii, Tatsuo  

To ensure the safety of workers working at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS), a technology to measure the distribution of radioactive materials in the working environment is required. In order to develop a new gamma-ray imager that can compensate for the shortcomings of existing gamma-ray imagers, the feasibility of a gamma-ray detector that does not require a shield was examined by simulation. There are pinhole cameras and a Compton camera as a technology for imaging radioactive material distribution. Since the pinhole camera can identify the source direction in one event, the image reconstruction is easy, and there is a possibility that it can be applied to quantitative measurement. However, the total weight is too heavy to be suitable for remote measurement because a shield is required. Since the Compton camera does not require a shield, it is small and light, and remote measurement is possible. However, multiple events are required to estimate the source direction, and the cone drawn at that time becomes noise, and the S/N ratio of the image is lowered. We propose a novel gamma-ray imager such as a pinhole camera that does not require shields. In this study, we verified the principle of a directional gamma-ray detector that does not require a shield.