Application of A 10 mu g tin microcalorimeter in the field of low-energy X-ray metrology

LNHB (Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel) is responsible for the French r adioactivity standards and the updating of the radionuclide table containin g all available atomic and nuclear data. This implies decay scheme studies which require high-energy resolution spectrometry and also activity measure ments using low threshold and high detection efficiency detectors. To explo re the capabilities of cryogenic detectors for low-energy X-ray metrology, there has been a collaboration with the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale i n order to develop a fast microcalorimeter with a till absorber which guara ntees a detection efficiency greater than 99.9% in the 1-6 keV energy range . A feasability study of a decay scheme analysis was carried out on this mi crocalorimeter with a Ce-139 source; preliminary results on relative intens ities are presented. (C) 2000 Elsevier science B.V. All rights reserved.