Improvement of gas proportional counter performance by registration krypton and argon escape peaks in Mössbauer spectroscopy

Proportional gas counters are commonly used in the 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy for their good energy resolution and insensitivity to magnetic field. However, their counting rate is usually limited by relatively long dead time. This paper demonstrates a detection performance improving technique by registration Kα escape peaks coupled together with main full energy peaks. The validity of using both peaks was verified by transmission and conversion X-rays Mössbauer spectra recording, while using proportional gas counters filled with pure krypton and a mixture of argon and methane. The influence of this method on the resulted α-Fe Mössbauer spectra was studied in a view of resonance effect, energy resolution, spectra baseline, and statistical quality. The presented technique showed that the counting rate of Mössbauer spectra accumulation was increased by 95% while using pure krypton, whereas by using a mixture of argon and methane, the counting rate reached an increase of 27%.