Video

Liquid scintillator spectrometer counts the number of decays occurring per minute

Transcript

The silica glass vials are loaded into the liquid scintillation spectrometer. The C-14 atoms present in the benzene decay at a certain rate. The scintillator chemical butyl-PBD picks up each decay event and emits a tiny flash of light that the spectrometer is programmed to detect and count. In addition to the moa sample, control samples are also measured at the same time. The decay events for each sample are measured over a week.

Rights: University of Waikato
Published:17 September 2009