Screening materials with the XIA UltraLo alpha particle counter at Southern Methodist University

M. Z. Nakib, J. Cooley, V. E. Guiseppe, B. Kara, H. Qiu, K. Rielage, R. W. Schnee, S. Scorza

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Southern Methodist University houses one of five existing commercially available UltraLo 1800 production model alpha counters made by XIA LLC. The instrument has an electron drift chamber with a 707 cm2 or 1800 cm2 counting region which is determined by selecting the inner electrode size. The SMU team operating this device is part of the SuperCDMS screening working group, and uses the alpha counter to study the background rates from the decay of radon in materials used to construct the SuperCDMS experiment. We have studied four acrylic samples obtained from the MiniCLEAN direct dark matter search with the XIA instrument demonstrating its utility in low background experiments by investigating the plate-out of 210Pb and comparing the effectiveness of cleaning procedures in removing 222Rn progenies from the samples.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLow Radioactivity Techniques 2013, LRT 2013 - Proceedings of the IV International Workshop in Low Radioactivity Techniques
Pages78-81
Number of pages4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013
Externally publishedYes
Event4th International Workshop in Low Radioactivity Techniques 2013, LRT 2013 - Assergi, Italy
Duration: Apr 10 2013Apr 12 2013

Publication series

NameAIP Conference Proceedings
Volume1549
ISSN (Print)0094-243X
ISSN (Electronic)1551-7616

Conference

Conference4th International Workshop in Low Radioactivity Techniques 2013, LRT 2013
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityAssergi
Period04/10/1304/12/13

Keywords

  • alpha detectors: dark matter

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