16 - Applications of particle detectors outside particle physics

Summary

There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science.

Louis Pasteur

There is a large number of applications for radiation detectors. They cover the field from medicine to space experiments, high energy physics and archaeology [1–4].

In medicine and, in particular, in nuclear medicine, imaging devices are usually employed where the size and function of the inner organs can be determined, e.g. by registering γ rays from radioactive tracers introduced into the body.

In geophysics it is possible to search for minerals by means of natural and induced γ radioactivity.

In space experiments one is frequently concerned with measuring solar and galactic particles and γ rays. In particular, the scanning of the radiation belts of the Earth (Van Allen belts) is of great importance for manned space missions. Many open questions of astrophysical interest can only be answered by experiments in space.

In the field of nuclear physics, methods of α-, β- and γ-ray spectroscopy with semiconductor detectors and scintillation counters are dominant [5]. High energy and cosmic-ray physics are the main fields of application of particle detectors [6–11]. On the one hand, one explores elementary particles down to dimensions of 10^-17 cm, and on the other, one tries by the measurement of PeV γ rays (10¹⁵ eV) to obtain information on the sources of cosmic rays.