Speaker
Description
Nuclear material is nowadays widely used in many fields, such as health, environment, agriculture, and industry. Besides its use for public utility, there is also the possibility that nuclear materials could be used for illicit purposes. For this reason, it is important that not only expert personnel, but also technicians and, as much as possible, common people, starting from high-level school, can be aware of radiation and methods for detecting it. CAEN Training Courses and Educational Kits aim to give both a comprehension of nuclear physics phenomena and to provide state-of-the-art technologies, instruments, and methods.
The CAEN Educational kits are Silicon Photo-Multipliers (SiPM) based. Silicon Photo-Multipliers represent the state-of-the-art in low light detection, featuring single-photon sensitivity and unprecedented photon number resolving capability. Their characteristics make them increasingly attractive for a wide range of applications in the Nuclear and Particle Physics fields, including Science Education opening new perspectives in the exploration of the quantum nature of light.
The Kits consist of a series of experiments with different difficulty levels, covering from the fundamentals of Statistics to Nuclear Physics, Particles Detection, and Nuclear Imaging. Many applications are exploited in the Kits, starting from experiments about gamma and beta spectroscopy, and cosmic rays to applications like building a prototype of a Positron Emission Tomography scanner, detecting and measuring NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials) and Radon, and measuring radioactivity on the field. All the necessary tools are included in the kit: detectors, as for example scintillating crystals like LYSO or CsI, a detection system based on Silicon Photo-Multipliers or Photo-Multiplier Tube, power supply and amplification module, and the digitizer to read out the signal. Small samples of common-use radioactive materials can be included as well. The user can acquire the energy spectra, calibrate them in terms of emitted energy, study the composition of different samples, etc. Finally, the new software platform called Hera makes available most of the experiences, giving the possibility to acquire the spectra and analyze them through integrated tools. Step-by-step instructions are given to guide even non-expert personnel towards the final measurement and combine theoretical background, hands-on setup operations, data analysis, and critical synthesis of the results for complete training.
