Interaction of Heavy Charge Particle With Matter: Characterizing the Interaction of Heavy Charge Particles with Matter

Abstract

The detection of photons is an indirect process,involving an interaction between the photon and the detector material whichresults in all, or part of the energy being transferred to one or moreelectrons. It is only through the energy loss from these electrons that the γ-ray is converted into an electrical signal. For the signal to be a goodrepresentation of the energy of the incident photon it is desirable that thephoton it is desirable that the photon energy is completely converted intokinetic energy of electrons in the material and that no energy escapes from thevolume of the detector in the form of low energy or back scattered photons orsecondary electrons. At the γ- ray energies of interest, three basicinteraction processes are dominant in converting the incident photon energyinto electrons in a detector: