Alpha radiation Definition and 12 Threads

Most general sources that describe the basics of ionizing radiation assert that the only type of radiation that can directly make other materials radioactive is neutron radiation (via "neutron activation"). Googling "does radiation make things radioactive?" produces a few examples, for...

That's about it. I've been trying to do the calculation manually with Bethe-Bloche without corrections in the energy range I'm interested in (1-10 MeV) for the highest Z material with data available for validation (Uranium), but I can't get a result that agree well with the database, so I'm...

Relative biological effectiveness is a factor that radiation dose is multiplied by to account for differences in biological damage by varying types of radiation. RBE is higher for alpha particles than any other, yet the relative penetrating power of alpha radiation is the smallest of the four...

The atomic nuclei consist out electrons, protons and neutrons (with only exception of hydrogen, that does have a neutron). Thus, it would be straightforward, that there existed a corresponding radiation for each nucleus component, when a nucleus decays. There is an electron radiation (beta...

Can we use Gold Leaf Electroscope to check whether a radioactive material gives off Alpha particles?

This might be a very stupid question :(, but I am confused. So I did an experiment. we had radioactive material which was emitting beta particles, and we were using geiger counter to measure pulses (ionized beta particles). We were supposed to measure the time it takes for the geiger counter to...

Hello everyone, Can alpha emitters cause nearby (gasses or air) to be excited and glow like Radium or Tritium? Is there certain chemicals (maybe like phosphor) that are suitable for it?

Alright if I have an object that's completely constituted of alpha radiation particles (emitting the +2 charge nucleus of a hydrogen atom), how would that be accurately detected taking into consideration that I don't have a Griegor Counter on hand? Americium-241

I am looking for an alpha detector to do an alpha spectroscopy (and maybe beta as well). The rough setup is a vacuum tube with a detector in one end and a source in the other, possibly with a magnet in the middle. I have googled around, but my problem is that I don't really know what is...

Say I were to pick up a big chunk of Americium-241. Could I just hold it in my hand or would it be painful? Not that I'm planning on doing it, just out of curiosity.

Hi all! I have the following question to solve and it's getting me down. Suppose we have an alpha source with very high radioactivity (such as 100kCu) in our workspace. Even though we know that the range of alpha particles in air is about 4 cm and we try to stay away from the source and...

Whats the energy released when an alpha particle is emitted, say for example, from Am-241 -> He-4 + Np-237 ? Is it the same for all decay reactions?