A continuous radon monitoring system based on a solid-state silicon detector

R. Peña-Eguiluz¹, J. M. García-Hernández² & F. J. Ramírez-Jiménez³

Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, AP 18-1027, 11801 México D.F., México.

¹ Laboratorio de Física de Plasmas.

² Departamento de Sistemas Electrónicos.

³ Laboratorio de Detectores de Radiación.

Email: rpe@nuclear.inin.mx

Abstract

This paper describes the design of a programmable stay-alone continuous radon monitoring system able to detect, count and store the amount of alpha particles with an energy of 5.49 MeV produced by the radioactive decay of environmental radon-222. It is included the electronic circuit design, the software development as well as the user interface and the hardware ensemble of all the system components.

Keywords: radon monitoring, microcontroller, alpha detector.

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