Experimental investigation of effective atomic numbers for some binary alloys

In the present work, the gamma ray backscattering technique was used to determine the effective atomic numbers for certain binary alloys. With the help of a muffle furnace, the binary alloys were synthesized using the melt quenching technique with different compositions of 82Pb, 50Sn, and 30Zn. The intensity distribution of backscattered photons from radioactive isotope 22Na (511 keV) was recorded with the help of GAMMARAD5 [76 mm × 76 mm NaI(Tl) scintillator detector] and analyzed as a function of both atomic number and thickness of the target material. The effective atomic numbers for the same binary alloys were also computed theoretically using the atomic to electronic cross-section method with the help of the mass attenuation coefficient database of WinXCom (2001). Good agreement was observed between theoretical and experimental results for the effective atomic numbers of all the selected alloys.