Posted: 3/17/2015 8:48:34 PM EDT
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Has anyone ever seen these before?
http://www.amazon.com/Radiation-Detector-Smartphone-Earphone-Semiconductor/dp/B00OVTJV6A/ref=pd_sim_sbs_indust_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0WPEDE7E7V9FPJ3YRTS7 How well, if at all, do they work? |
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Quoted:
Has anyone ever seen these before? http://www.amazon.com/Radiation-Detector-Smartphone-Earphone-Semiconductor/dp/B00OVTJV6A/ref=pd_sim_sbs_indust_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0WPEDE7E7V9FPJ3YRTS7 How well, if at all, do they work? I don't have this particular unit, but I've made them. The tip-off is it says it's a semiconductor detector, and it only detects xrays and gamma. It's not a geiger counter, which needs a geiger tube. The closest device it resembles is a detector known as a scintillator. The detector is a big diode (usually a PIN photodiode) which as a side-effect of its construction will detect relatively high energy radiation. It's not very efficient at detecting, and the detection area is small so it doesn't pick up much, but it does techinically work. So OK for confirming that yes, WW3 happened last week, but not so good in telling you that your sushi is 15% above background. You can test them with a check source. Amazon or United Nuclear will have them. They're unregulated. One cool thing about this class of detector (not sure if this particular unit does this) is that it can actually output a pulse proportionate to the energy of the particle that hit it; this is cool because if you sample enough events you can figure out the specific material you're detecting as the decays have unique energies and proportions. |