Development of portable gas proportional scintillation counters for x-ray spectrometry

A review on gas proportional scintillation counters (GPSCs) is presented. Recent achievements towards the portability of simple, inexpensive and compact GPSCs are discussed. Compensation of solid angle effects with the curved grid technique can be used to produce non-focused GPSCs with medium-sized radiation windows, at least up to 80% of the photosensor active diameter, without degradation of detector performance. Low power-consuming and compact vacuum UV photosensors that can operate in direct contact with the scintillation gas, as an alternative to photomultiplier tubes, are now available. Small gettering devices with a low-power built-in heating elements have been shown to be sufficient for the required gas purification in GPSCs assembled with simple and inexpensive techniques, such as the use of epoxies for ceramic-to-metal joints. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.