Gamma rays

Radioactivity

can be found everywhere in the environment, because this is due to sources in nature, which originated and exist independently of humans.

Thus, every person on earth is exposed to nature given ionizing radiation and cannot completely escape it.

It is even the case that life and development would not be possible without this natural radiation: there are many lightly radioactive elements on Earth, the radiation of which has changed our genetic makeup minimally since ancient times (so-called mutations).

In this way, unicellular organisms could become humans.

Nevertheless, the word "radioactivity" alone causes discomfort and fear for many people, because they combine it with such terrible man-made disasters, such as the consequences of the atomic bombing of the Americans over Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II and the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters .

Physical basics:

As is known, elements consist of atoms, which in turn consist of an atomic nucleus and negatively charged particles, the electrons.

Some of these elements are unstable, i.e. they disintegrate spontaneously, they are called "radioactive" ..

Thus radioactivity is a property of the atomic nucleus of the radioactive elements.

The atoms of these elements are unstable due to their composition, that is, they only exist for a certain time. Then the atomic nucleus breaks down into different parts.

This process, in which energy is released in the form of radiation, is also called "radioactive decay".

A distinction is made between the following 3 types of radiation, which differ in their range, penetration of other substances / materials and energy:

● Alpha (α) radiation

● Beta (β) radiation

● Gamma (γ) radiation

Difference gamma <-> x-rays

There is often confusion or misunderstanding about the difference between gamma and X-rays.

Basically, you can or should determine this by the type of origin and not by wavelength or energy.

Seen in this way, gamma radiation is the result of nuclear decay (not the electron shell of an atom is excited, but the atomic nucleus itself) or the decay of unstable particles.

X-rays, on the other hand, are released when (in contrast to gamma radiation) an inner electron shell of an atom is excited, which puts the atom (with the emission of a photon) into a lower energy state.

Such an approach simplifies the view considerably.

However, since the energy ranges of gamma and X-rays ultimately overlap in a wide range, their effect and influence on organisms and materials as radiation with the same energy are therefore equivalent.

Radioactivity in industrial measurement

Natural radiation - Mining in particular offers the possibility of using the natural steel of substances.

The use of so-called sources that are artificially manufactured and used in special security containers.

In modern measurement technology, materials are used that have a higher sensitivity than conventional Geiger-Müller tubes.

Such modern scintillators are primarily used in the detectors from RGI Industriemessgeräte GmbH.