Pommé and Sibbens: Alpha-particle Counting and Spectrometry... Mini review

This paper describes the application of alpha-particle counting at a defined low solid angle and of high-resolution alpha-particle spectrometry at IRMM. These techniques are used in the frame of primary standardisations of radioactive solu-tions or for the determination of nuclear decay data (alpha emission probabilities and energies, half-lives). Various tech-nical aspects are discussed, such as source preparation, instrumentation, solid-angle calculations, peak shapes, fitting routines, bias of least-squares methods, off-line stability corrections, simulation of energy loss, uncertainties. The pre-sented algorithms may also be useful for routine alpha-particle spectrometry, in particular for the assessment of its un-certainty budget