Characterization of strong 241Am sources

• Age and impurities can be used as a signature for 241Am sources.
• Nuclear reactions take place in sources with low Z impurities.
• Some sources contain 243Am as an impurity.

Gamma ray spectra of strong 241Am sources may reveal information about the source composition as there may be other radioactive nuclides such as progeny and radioactive impurities present. In this work the possibility to use gamma spectrometry to identify inherent signatures in 241Am sources in order to differentiate sources from each other, is investigated. The studied signatures are age, i.e. time passed since last chemical separation, and presence of impurities. The spectra of some sources show a number of Doppler broadened peaks in the spectrum which indicate the presence of nuclear reactions on light elements within the sources. The results show that the investigated sources can be differentiated between by age and/or presence of impurities. These spectral features would be useful information in a national nuclear forensics library (NNFL) in cases when the visual information on the source, e.g. the source number, is unavailable.