Measurement of the photoeffect cross section and the K-absorption edge energy of Dy, Ta, Pt and Au atoms using Bremsstrahlung

An experimental setup to determine the K-shell photoelectric cross-section of Dy, Ta, Pt and Au atoms was implemented at the Nuclear Analytical Laboratory (LAN) of the InSTEC. Bremsstrahlung photons, produced by - beta particles hitting a thin Ni converter, were used to irradiate the target under study. A HPGe detector, coupled to standard nuclear instrumentation, collected the incident and transmitted spectra. A sharp decrease in intensity at the K-shell binding energy was observed in the transmitted spectra. The photon beam divergence effects were corrected with a calibration curve calculated with Monte Carlo simulations (MCNPX 2.6). In order to establish accurately the cross section at the K-edge energy, the obtained data was processed by two methods: fitting the total cross section to a sigmoidal function, as well as the cross section branches around the K-edge to the empirical law . The Empirical Law method was introduced in this work to minimize the detector resolution effects. The results were compared with experimental and theoretical values showing the best agreement when the thinner targets were used. For the first time the photoeffect cross section at the K-edge energy for Pt is reported at first time.