IMPOSSIBLE! Detecting Gamma Radiation with a Rock of Fluorite?!!

Will a common piece of Fluorite attached to a photomultiplier detect gamma radiation? Lets find out! #science #nuclearscience #electronics #fluorite #diyideas

[@Muonium1]

Cool! I didn't even know fluorite was used as a scintillator until a few days ago when the Angry Turtle gems guy did a short video on cutting some synthetic fluorite originally intended for just this purpose. May I suggest another experiment with it? Boil a cup of water and dip the fluorite end of the assembly (in a plastic bag or something to eliminate water ingress) into the water to see if you can just start to see the onset of thermoluminescence from the fluorite due to lattice defects and F-centers accumulated during its time exposed to ambient radiation underground.

[@kensejkora4424]

Great video! Did you try exposing the various fluorite crystals to ultraviolet light to see which ones, if any, fluoresce under UV? Fluorite is one of the more common fluorescent menerals collected by those who like fluorescent rocks. It would make sense that something that would fluoresce under UV might make a "better" scintillation detector, but we are talking vastly different energies from UV (fractions of a keV, perhaps up to 0.005 keV)) versus something like Co-60 (thousands of keV, specifically 1173 and 1332 keV). Thanks again for the great video. -- Ken

[@hiddencow3272]

excellent vid

[@U235hexafluoridedude]

Pull a spectrum off it to evaluate the fwhm.

[@ClagwellsGarage]

@@U235hexafluoridedude
Totally in the works after I get new audio interface for the spectrometer setup.