A 50 cm3, lithium-drifted, germanium detector with its aluminum mounting assembly. To decrease detector noise, these high-resolution gamma ray detectors were normally kept at liquid-nitrogen temperature during operation. The four cm long crystal is four cm in diameter. The detector was used in the Analytical Science Branch (ASB) at the Whiteshell Laboratories for measurements to support nuclear waste-management research and other research activities. It resided in the ASB’s Counting Lab in a heavily shielded (Pb lined with Cu plate) “cave” where it measured the gamma spectra of samples arriving from tracer studies or after neutron activation. Several of these caves were fitted with automated sample changers to allow high-throughput analysis day and night. It, or a sibling, was used in the counting lab for the analysis of debris from Cosmos 954 in 1978.
