Electro-precipitation of actinides on boron-doped diamond thin films for solid sources preparation for high-resolution alpha-particle spectrometry

Abstract

In this work, we investigate a novel approach to prepare high-performance alpha-particle solid sources fabricated on diamond thin support layers, offering the properties of diamond such as a low-Z material with corrosion and mechanical hardness. As-prepared solid sources onto borondoped- diamond (BDD) substrate exhibited high performance of the autoradiography and spectroscopic resolution at the level of other more conventional materials such as stainless steel. A straightforward precipitation process in the Na 2 SO 4 or NaNO 3 simple electrolytes under mild experimental conditions with a low current of several mA.cm -2 were successfully developed onto BDD substrates for deposition of single 241 Am as well as 239 Pu, 241 Am, and 244 Cm mixed radionuclides. The results demonstrate that solid sources deposited onto such BDD substrates can match the performance of those prepared onto stainless steel substrates with excellent uniformity and highresolution spectroscopy, together combining the robustness, chemical resilience, and X-ray transparence of the diamond. Alpha-particle spectra exhibiting a low full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 12.5 keV at the energy of 5.485 MeV ( 241 Am) could be practically obtained for BDD substrates.