Determination of high-energy x-ray spectra by photoactivation

The determination of high-energy x-ray spectra has required scintillation spectrometers with massive shielding, neutron time-of-flight spectrometers, or the tedious counting of electron tracks in nuclear emulsions. A new approach has been developed which takes advantage of the energy dependence of photoactivation cross sections. Radioactivity is produced in a small packet of C, Cu, Co, Y, Zr, and Au foils by approximately 5000 rad (tissue). Since the amount of radioactivity produced in each foil is given by the integral of the product of photonuclear cross section and differential photon fluence, a numerical method for unfolding the spectrum is required, and the orthonormal expansion has been employed for this purpose. The photoactivation method has been used to determine the x-ray spectra produced by 30-MeV electrons incident upon thin and thick tungsten targets, and filtered by equivalent amounts of lead and aluminum. These spectra have been compared to calculated thin-target spectra as well as to those determined by a neutron time-of-flight spectrometer. The central-axis and off-axis x-ray spectra produced by a 33-MeV betatron have also been determined.