A new FSA approach for in situ γ ray spectroscopy Original Research Article

An increasing demand of environmental radioactivity monitoring comes both from the scientific community and from the society. This requires accurate, reliable and fast response preferably from portable radiation detectors. Thanks to recent improvements in the technology, γ spectroscopy with sodium iodide scintillators has been proved to be an excellent tool for in-situ measurements for the identification and quantitative determination of γ ray emitting radioisotopes, reducing time and costs. Both for geological and civil purposes not only 40K, 238U, and 232Th have to be measured, but there is also a growing interest to determine the abundances of anthropic elements, like 137Cs and 131I, which are used to monitor the effect of nuclear accidents or other human activities.