Radiation detection

Detecting and measuring

ionizing radiation - a short history
by F.N. Flakus*

Ionizing radiation causes neutral atoms or molecules Emergence of radiation detectors

to acquire either a positive or negative electrical charge. from the early discoveries
The most commonly known types of ionizing
radiation are alpha, beta, gamma, X, and neutron rays. On the evening of 8 November 1895, while working
Charged-particle radiation, such as alpha or beta rays, in a carefully darkened room, Rontgen noticed that a
has a direct ionizing effect; whereas neutral radiation, piece of a cardboard coated with barium platinocyanide
such as X, gamma, or neutron rays, have an indirect showed a faint, flickering, greenish light (fluorescence)
ionizing effect, i.e. these radiations first generate charged when electrical discharges took place in a Hittorf-Crookes
particles which then have the ionizing effect. tube near the screen. The tube itself was carefully covered
with a black shield impervious to any visible light.
Radiation is a form of energy. This energy can be Rontgen verified that the tube was the source of a new
partly or wholly deposited in a suitable medium and kind of radiation, which was invisible but which revealed
thus produce an effect. The detection and measurement its existence when hitting the luminescent screen.
of radiation is based upon the detection and Rontgen subsequently performed many careful experiments
measurement of its effects in a medium, and the history on the radiation which he named X-rays. His first
of the emergence of radiation detectors is closely important step was to replace the fluorescent screen by a
related to the discovery of radiation and radiation photographic plate- this was susceptible to X-rays and
effects. thus provided a tool for recording X-ray pictures.
Radioactive material emits ionizing radiation without On 22 December 1895, Rontgen made the first
having been subject to any external influence. The medical X-ray photograph. It shows the hand of his
type of radiation emitted and its associated energy is wife and marks the birth of radiography. Subsequently,
characteristic for the kind of radioactive substance. In mainly photographic plates were used in X-ray studies.
many applications of radiation detectors, the object The fluorescent screen lost importance, although
is to measure the energy distribution of the radiation fluoroscopes or sciascopes were improved by W.F. Magie,
(spectrometry). E.P. Thomson, and T.A. Edison. During his many
Although ionizing radiation has been present in experiments on X-rays, Rontgen also observed that air
nature (cosmic rays, naturally occurring radioactive would conduct electricity when traversed by the rays.
materials) throughout man's history, it remained This effect was later-used as the operating principle for
unnoticed until less than 100 years ago. Man has no several kinds of radiation detector. For his discovery,
specific sense which could have responded to this kind of Rontgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics in
radiation and it had not been possible for scientific 1901.
initiative to develop any instruments that would have It is interesting that the valuable possibilities of the use
amplified a human response to that radiation, as was the of X-rays for many purposes, medical and non-medical,
case for example in the area of visible light waves became immediately apparent and that during the
(optics) following year, 1896, over 1000 articles and more than
As we know today, tools for detecting ionizing 50 books were published on the subject. Knowledge of
radiation were, in principle, in existence rather early: the new findings spread along with ignorance and
the phenomenon of thermoluminescence was first scattered opposition" for instance, it was proposed "to
described in the 17th century; the gold leaf electroscope prohibit the use of X-rays in opera glasses at theatres"
was invented in the 18th century; and photography was or "to burn all work on the X-rays and to execute all
developed during the early 19th century. However the discoverers". One company "made a prey of ignorant
many years passed until the doors to these completely women by advertising the sale of X-ray-proof under-
new fields of science were opened by W.C. Rontgen clothing".
in 1895, and by H. Becquerel in 1896. In early work with X-rays it had been quickly
recognized that the spot in the discharge tube where the
* Mr Flakus is a staff member in the Radiological Safety cathode rays caused the emission of X-rays, was
Section of the IAEA's Division of Nuclear Safety. characterized by a strong fluorescence and a correlation

IAEA BULLETIN, VOL 23, No 4 31

Radiation detection
between this fluorescence and the emission of X-rays was In the beginning of radium research work, the
suspected. Following suggestions made by H. Poincare, photographic plate was used to study the new phenomena.
Becquerel in 1896 undertook a systematic study of the However, ease of handling, relatively low cost and high
connection between the emission of visible light and of sensitivity soon made the gold-leaf electroscope the
X-rays. He wrapped phosphorescent substances, after preferred measuring instrument for work with radio-
exposure to sunlight, in black paper and placed them on active material. Various types of electroscopes were
photographic plates to detect any emission of X-rays. developed for this purpose' the alpha electroscope,
It happened that Becquerel started his experiments with where the ionization chamber and the measuring chamber
highly fluorescent uranium compounds. He demonstrated were closely connected; the beta electroscope, where
that the position of the uranium minerals was revealed by ionization chamber and measuring chamber were
black spots occurring on the developed photographic plate combined, and the emanation electroscope for measuring
and that penetrating rays like X-rays were emitted. When radioactive gases. The use of ionization chambers in
he later developed a photographic plate that had lain for conjuction with galvanometers remained restricted to the
several days in a drawer under a tray with uranium salts measurement of intense radiation. The very early
which had not been exposed to sunlight, he found the detection methods, namely the fluorescent screen, the
same dark spots on the plate. He repeated the experiment photographic plate, the gold-leaf electroscope, and the
and concluded that neither sunlight, phosphorescence nor ionization chamber in combination with an electroscope
fluorescence was necessary to produce the effect, and that or galvanometer, had one common characteristic: they
invisible rays were emitted from all uranium compounds could only be used to respond to "bulk" radiation but
and from metallic uranium. This marks the discovery of they were insensitive to single rays.
radioactivity m 1896.
The first instrument that was able to detect individual
Becquerel continued carefully to investigate the rays was the spinthariscope, invented by Crookes in
properties of the rays. Among other important facts, 1903. It had been discovered that the luminosity of a
he found that the rays discharged a charged electroscope zinc sulphide screen, when exposed to alpha particles,
(invented in 1787 by A. Bennett). After Becquerel's consisted of a number of individual scintillating points of
discovery, scientists started the search for further light that could be observed with a strong magnifying
elements with radiation-emitting properties. glass. Rutherford and Geiger found that, on a uniform
As already mentioned, one property of X-rays dis- screen, each scintillation corresponded to the impact of
covered very early was their ability to make dry air one alpha particle only. Thus a very simple method for
electrically conductive, i.e to liberate electrical charges counting individual alpha particles was available which
in air. These charges could be collected by producing an eventually gained great practical importance. The method
electric field across that volume of air. However, it was was refined and used most profitably by Rutherford
not until the work of J.J. Thomson in 1899 that the and his students and was extensively used for many years
operating characteristics of these ionization chambers until the 1930s. However, it imposed considerable
were well understood. Madame Sklodowska Curie strain and fatigue on the observers: the usual procedure
realized that the ionization method of measuring the was for an observer to count for one minute, then be
intensity of X-rays would be well suited to detecting the relieved by another observer. Each observer might have
radiation found by Becquerel. She equipped an electro- to count for 20 periods of one minute each during one
meter used by her husband Pierre Curie with a suitable experiment.
ionization chamber and repeated Becquerel's experiments.
The method proved very satisfactory. She found that Another instrument that made single radiation events
the intensity of the radiation was proportional to the visible was the cloud chamber, first built in 1911 by
amount of uranium. In July 1898, together with her C.T.R. Wilson. A cloud chamber usually consists of a
husband, she discovered the radioactive element flat glass front-plate for observation, glass side-walls for
polonium. In December 1898 they announced the illumination, backed by a movable piston in order to
discovery of radium. Together with Becquerel, they were expand the volume of the chamber in a small fraction of
awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903. It was also a second. Droplets form along the path of electrically
Madame Curie who proposed calling the new phenomenon charged particles and these visible tracks can be
radioactivity. photographed.

It is interestmg to note that in 1899, J. Elster and Between 1923 and 1930 the cloud chamber was
H. Gertel, and independently C.T.R. Wilson, had found developed into a most useful research tool which has a
that an electroscope steadily lost charge without very large number of important discoveries to its credit.
apparently being exposed to radiation, and suggested In 1939, A. Langsdorf built the first diffusion cloud
that this resulted from the presence of radioactivity in chamber, which is continuously sensitive. Since the
the earth. The deflection of part of the "Becquerel 1950s bubble chambers, which make particle trails visible
rays" in a magnetic field was also noticed in 1899. A in liquid medium, have been in wide use in high-energy
few years later Rutherford succeeded in giving a complete physics experiments. In the 1960s streamer chambers
explanation of the nature of alpha, beta, and gamma rays. were developed.
32 IAEA BULLETIN, VOL. 23, No 4
 Radiation detection

Reconstruction of the experimental set-up by which R5ntgen discovered X-rays on 8 November 1895. The discharge tube is fixed to the
tripod, the fluorescent screen is located in the right upper corner. (Photo: Deutsches Rontgen-Museum.)

Besides photographic, lonization, and scintillation 178 names. In 1928, at the Second International
effects, other effects of radiation were noticed very early. Congress of Radiology, the International Commission on
The fact that ionizing radiation has biological effects was Radiological Protection (ICRP) was set up, originally
known from the earliest days of radiation work. In April under the name of the International X-ray and Radium
1896 Daniel described a serious skin reaction which Protection Committee This body has since taken the
occurred after prolonged exposure to X-rays. Similar lead in establishing radiation safety principles.
observations were also made by several other X-ray
Another physiological effect that was observed soon
investigators. One X-ray burn is known to have occurred
after the discovery of radium was the rapid depression
even before X-rays were discovered! In summer 1895
of leucocytes in the blood after injection of radioactive
while working with cathode discharge tubes, E. Grubbe
liquids. Also it became known that blind people had a
developed a curious dermatitis of the hands which
sensation of light when their eyes were exposed to a
neither he nor his physician understood. He died of
radium source, the reason for this being a fluorescence of
cancer in 1960. Becquerel, in 1901, found a reddening
the eye's lens, body, and retina under gamma-ray exposure.
of the skin under his waistcoat, where he had pocketed
a radiation source. P. Curie intentionally exposed part of Further effects of radiation were the colouring of
his arm to a radiation source for 10 hours which resulted glasses or minerals as well as the bleaching of colours and
in a sunburn-like skin reaction and wound and which a slightly elevated temperature of strong radium samples.
took four months to heal. Danlos, of the Hospital Saint- These effects played only a minor role in detection and
Louis, investigated whether the effects of radium on the measuring in the early days of radiation work. Later
skin could be utilized for the treatment of certain skin however, chemical effects were widely used for quick
diseases. However many of the pioneers in radiation dosimetry in strong radiation fields, and the thermal
research became martyrs to their work. A memorial to effect gained particular importance for absolute radiation
these martyrs was erected in Hamburg in 1936, listing measurements of alpha emitters with microcalorimeters.
IAEA BULLETIN, VOL 23, No 4 33
Radiation detection

Evolution of radiation detectors iodide crystal was discovered which became commercially
available in 1950, and was widely used thereafter. This
The effects discovered in the early research work with was virtually the first pratical solid detection medium
X-rays and radioactive materials remain the underlying for gamma-ray spectrometry, and remains the most
principles of radiation detection into modern times. popular scintillation detector for this application today.
Detection instruments have been improved many times Liquid scintillation detectors were reported in 1948, but
over the years and numerous investigators have contributed interest in these detectors did not develop until the
to a tremendous development, of which only the main 1960s. Although the Nal(Tl) crystal is technically a
lines can be sketched here. solid detector, it has become the practice to characterize
only devices that are based on semiconductor media as
Photographic emulsions solid-state detectors.
As already outlined, using photographic plates to
record ionizing radiation dates back to the discovery of Ionization
X-rays and radioactivity. In later years special photo- Various materials can be ionized, but to be of use in a
graphic emulsions were developed, particularly for use in detection instrument, charges generated by radiation
X-ray radiography and autoradiography. The early must move under the influence of an electric field.
applications made use of the darkening of the emulsion Gases fulfill this condition easily, and the first generation
under irradiation. But in the 1930s, other special of ionization detectors were gas-filled. The simplest
emulsions, nuclear emulsions, were developed which type is the ionization chamber which was already an
allowed individual nuclear tracks to be observed. These essential tool in the early studies of X-rays. By using an
were extensively used in research work on cosmic rays. ionization chamber during a balloon flight, Hess in 1910
provided the first evidence for cosmic rays.
Photographic dosimetry was made quantitative only
in 1942, when radiation film badges for routine personnel In 1908 Rutherford and Geiger described the first
monitoring were designed. Before then, some use had cylindrical electrical counter for alpha particles, which
been made of film to estimate the exposure of personnel they improved in 1912 by introducing a spherical counter.
to radiation, but the results were vague at best: dental- Further progress was achieved in 1913 when a detector
film packages, carried for some time in the pocket, were for counting beta particles was developed. In 1928
developed and a density that made newspaper print Geiger and Muller introduced a new type of gas-filled
illegible was taken as an indication that protective counter that responded to individual radiation-induced
measures should be investigated. Photographic emulsions events by giving a high-level output signal. This was the
were also used as an aid in work with cloud chambers and Geiger-Muller counter or GM counter. The counter was
particularly in magnetic spectrographic systems for further developed in the 1930s and, because of its
particle spectrometry. Today, photographic emulsions simplicity, ease of operation, and cheapness, rapidly
are widely used'in medicine, industry, and research. found wide use. The GM counter however could not
directly measure the energy of radiation and was limited
Scintillation to relatively low counting rates. However it is still often
the best choice when a simple and economic counting
Detecting ionizing radiation by the scintillating light system is needed.
induced in zinc sulphide was one of the first radiation
detection and counting techniques. It was almost com- The development of gas-filled detectors reached
pletely superseded by electrical counting methods in the further intensity in the 1940s. In 1940, Frisch invented
1930s. But the method came to life again in the 1940s, the gridded ionization chamber, which still finds limited
electronic photomultiplier tubes were introduced and application in alpha spectrometry. In the late 1940s a
third type of gas-filled detector, the proportional
matched with scintillators to convert the weak light
counter, was introduced which amplified the charge
flashes into usable electric pulses that could be counted
originating in the gas. An important application of
electronically. Counting by eye became obsolete.
proportional counters was the spectrometry of low-
To be a good scintillator, a material should convert as energy X-rays. Today proportional counters are still
large a fraction as possible of the incident radiation widely used in many laboratories for alpha or beta
energy into prompt fluorescence, the light-yield should radiation measurements. Although gas-filled detectors
be proportional to the deposited energy, the luminescence are still in routine use in nuclear laboratories, the classical
should be of short duration, the material should be gas-ionization detectors have disappeared from almost all
homogeneous and of good optical quality. No material high-precision work.
simultaneously meets all these criteria, and the choice
It was soon realized that the use of a solid detection
of a particular scintillator is always a compromise
among these and other factors. medium instead of a gas would be of great advantage in
radiation detection applications, as solids are about
Several good scintillating media were found in the 1000 times denser than gases and the dimensions of solid
years 1947 and 1948. Organic scintillators were intro- detectors could be kept much smaller than those of
duced in 1947. In 1948 the thallium-activated sodium equivalent gas-filled detectors. Some work on crystal
34 IAEA BULLETIN, VOL 23, No 4
 Radiation detection

counters was reported as early as 1932 by Jaffe, and in

1945 by Van Heerden. However, radiation detectors
which measure the ionization produced in solid dielectrics,
and which are the solid-state analogue of gaseous
chambers, emerged only in the late 1950s and early
1960s. These semiconductor detectors were then rapidly
developed. Diffused-junction and surface-barrier
detectors found widespread application in the detection
of alpha particles. The process of ion-drifting, first
demonstrated by Pell in 1960, provided the practical
method through which semiconductor detectors could be
fabricated with larger active volumes. These "drifted
detectors" quickly spread throughout nuclear science.
Today, silicon as semiconductor material predominates
in diode-detectors used for charged-particle spectrometry,
while germanium is more widely used in ion-drifted
detectors for gamma-ray measurements. Silicon
detectors have become the most common choice for low-
energy X-ray spectroscopy systems and also for the
spectroscopy of beta particles. The main characteristic
of germanium detectors is their excellent energy
resolution in gamma-ray spectroscopy, and here these
detectors have now almost supplanted all other systems.
The production of Ge(Li)-detectors requires great skill.
However, when these detectors became commercially
available, they spread around the world like wildfire.
X-ray photograph taken by Rontgen on 22 December 1895,
A practical limitation of Ge(Li) detectors is that they showing the hand of his wife.
have to be stored and operated at very low temperatures. (Photo: Deutsches Rontgen-Museum.)
During the period 1970-1972 ultrapure germanium
became available which enabled the production of
germanium detectors without lithium compensation, the reactions with boron-10 and lithium-6, and the (n, p)
so-called intrinsic germanium detectors. These can be reaction with helium-3. A widely used detector for slow
stored at room temperature. It is estimated that about neutrons is the proportional tube filled with boron
1000 intrinsic germanium detectors are in use today all trifluoride gas.
over the world. Several fast-neutron detectors were based on the
principle of placing a slow-neutron detector in the centre
Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932. Modest of a moderating medium. A popular detector, a long
neutron sources soon became available, but neutron counter which consists of a BF 3 tube surrounded by a
detection and measurement posed much greater cylindrical moderator and which delivers a "flat
difficulties than for the other types of radiation. Early response" curve, was first suggested by Hanson and
work focused almost entirely on secondary ionization McKibben in 1947. The discovery of organic scintillators
detectors, where the charged products of neutron- for neutron detection around 1950 expanded the field
induced reactions, or the charged recoils, were detected of fast neutron physics. The development of inorganic
in appropriate ionization or proportional counters. Only scintillators (Li-6 glass scintillators) was important for
several years later, after 1942, when very strong neutron the advances in low-energy neutron physics since the
sources in the form of fission reactors became available, early 1960s. The greatest precision in slow-neutron
were more sophisticated neutron detectors developed. detection, however, was attained with so-called "time of
Virtually every type of neutron detector involves the flight" systems.
combination of a target material, designed to convert In 1960, Bramblett, Ewing, and Bonner first
the neutrons into energetic charged particles, together developed a "spherical dosimeter" whose neutron
with a conventional radiation detector. As neutron detection probability well matched the dose delivered by
physics covers a very broad energy span of about neutrons in a biological medium, and which today
14 decades (10~6 to 108 eV), rather different techniques carries the name "Bonner sphere". Development of
have been developed for neutron detection in different small detectors for neutron exposure control, particularly
energy regions, generally distinguished as slow, inter- for the intermediate neutron-energy region, still requires
mediate, and fast neutrons. particular attention.
The most popular reactions for the conversion of slow Many other detectors which have not been mentioned,
neutrons into detectable charged particles are the (n, a) play an important role in radiation detection today: in
IAEA BULLETIN, VOL 23, No 4 35
Radiation detection
certain materials, notably plastic foils, the trail of Their performance was steadily improved, for instance in
damaged molecules along a particle track can be made 1956 by the development of feedback circuits.
visible by enlarging the damage through etching with
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the vacuum-
chemical agents Materials used to detect charged
tube circuits were replaced by transistor circuits, the
particles m this way are termed track-etch detectors.
advantages being low energy consumption, small size
Special read-out methods for counting such tracks are
(integrated circuits), and reliability. This quickly led to
available and the track detection method has found
the development of many very capable portable radiation
useful application for the detection of heavy ions and detectors. Instruments were extended to cope with
fission products higher counting rates. During the 1960s computer
The radioactivity induced in a great number of technology was applied to radiation detectors. The many
materials by neutron interaction can serve for neutron advantages that microprocessors (central processing
measurements. Measurement of radiation emitted from units on integrated circuit chips) will bring to radiation
these materials can be used to deduce information about measuring instruments can only be imagined today.
the incident neutrons. Such detectors are termed
activation detectors. Complex physical limitations are Outlook
involved, nevertheless activation detectors have found
Over a period of less than a century, nuclear radiation
limited application for neutron radiation measurements.
detectors have steadily extended human senses into
Inorganic scintillation materials emit light in the form entirely new realms, they have virtually provided man
of prompt fluorescence when exposed to radiation. A with a sixth sense. A great many reliable instruments for
different class of inorganic crystals however can "trap detecting and measuring ionizing radiation are now
and store" the excitations caused by irradiation and this available, ranging from instruments that are widely used
excitation can be freed as light emission, under elevated as routine tools in nuclear laboratories, to highly
temperature. Materials with such properties function as sophisticated complex instrument systems designed for
integrating detectors. Detectors based on this principle very special applications. Detectors have not only
are termed thermoluminescent dosimeters The investigated the nature of nuclear radiation and radiation
phenomenon of thermoluminescence was first described emitters, but they have served the beneficial application
by Boyle in 1663 and later by Wick in 1927-1928 of radiation in medicine, industry, and research, and
The studies which led to the development of the thermo- also the control of any hazards that might arise from
luminescent dosimeter (TLD) however started only in ionizing radiation.
1948 by L.F. Heckelsberg. The relationship found
The rapid development of measuring instruments and
between radiation-dose arid the amount of thermo-
their wide availability, however, has brought with it new
luminescence led Daniels to suggest the use of alkali
problems: one can see highly sophisticated instruments
halide crystals for radiation dosimetry. Small pieces of
being used in many places where a simpler instrument
LiF first came into large-scale use as personnel dosimeters
would be sufficient, for example multichannel analysers
in 1966. These little TLD chips are gradually replacing
might be used where a single-channel analyser would serve.
photographic film badges in personnel dosimetry
particularly in tropical countries. Radiation measuring instruments have given man
A further detector that is based on a different the ability to characterize his environment at levels of
principle and that deserves particular mention is the precision that even a few years ago would have been
Cherenkov detector. Light emitted by fast charged considered impossible. For many elements, sensitivity
particles passing through a transparent medium was first has reached the level of parts per billion — very much
observed by Cherenkov in 1937 and named after him. smaller concentrations than have ever before been
Detectors based on sensing Cherenkov light are widely accessible to any measurements.
used in high-energy physics experiments.

Detector instrumentation Bibliography

The science of ionizing radiation Compiled and edited by
The development of radiation detectors could not L.E. Etter Charles C Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, USA (1965)
have taken place without an important development that Detectors in nuclear science Ed D.A. Bromley Nuclear
occurred in parallel: the development of equipment to Instruments and Methods, Vol 162 No 1-3, Parts I and II
receive signals from radiation detectors, process them (1979)
and produce a convenient output. Some landmarks in Radiation detection and measurement G.F. Knoll John Wiley &
this evolution may be recalled Williams, in 1931, Sons, New York (1979)
extending the work of Greinacher in 1926, developed the Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen 1845-1923 1973 Inter Nations,
Bonn-Bad Godesberg, H Moos Verlag, Munchen.
first linear amplifier capable of amplifying the pulse
Radiation Protection Standards L.S. Taylor Butterworths, London
produced in a shallow ionization chamber by the passage
(1971)
of a single alpha particle. In 1940 the photomultiplier Historical note — thermoluminescent dosimetry (LiF) 1950—
was developed. In the early 1950s, a broad range of 1951 L.F Heckelsberg Health Physics Vol 39, pp. 391-393
amplifiers based on vacuum-tube circuits was on hand. (1980)
36 IAEA BULLETIN, VOL 23, No 4