Effective atomic and electron numbers of some steels at different energies

The effective atomic numbers (Zeff) and effective electron density (Ne) for three different steels have been determined via the mass attenuation coefficients (μ/ρ). The mass attenuation coefficients have been calculated at the photon energy range of 1 keV–1 GeV and measured at the photon energies of 662, 1173 and 1332 keV. The measurement has been performed using a gamma spectrometer that contains a NaI(Tl) detector connected to Multi-Channel-Analyzer (MCA). The measured results of effective atomic numbers (Zeff) and effective electron density (Ne) were found to be in good agreement with the calculations.