P3I-1 Effect of Gamma and Neutron Radiation on Quartz SAW Resonators

Packaged commercial 434 MHz quartz SAW resonators were placed at the output of a Colbalt 60 source and exposed to gamma radiation of up to 50 Mrads. Additional devices were positioned in close proximity to the enriched uranium core of a nuclear reactor and exposed to intense neutron radiation of 4.5 x 10¹² neutrons/cm²s for up to 40 seconds. The irradiated resonators were then inserted in the feedback loop of a custom oscillator to measure the shift in output frequency as a function of radiation exposure. No clear relationships were observed between the amount of radiation exposure and frequency shift in either case.