A two mm thick end slice from an ingot of germanium. The triangular ingot measured about 50 mm on a side. This slice, which contained some crystal imperfections, was made into a simple piece of dress jewellery. A.J. Tavendale, an NRC Fellow from Australia, and G.T. Ewan of CRNL developed the lithium-drifted germanium gamma ray detectors at CRNL in 1963. These detectors, which offered an order of magnitude improvement in resolution for detecting gamma rays, revolutionized the study of nuclear decay worldwide. Ewan and Tavendale were awarded a Radiation Industry Prize by the American Nuclear Society in 1967 for their work. The development was initially spun off to the RCA Victor Company in Montreal and eventually was taken over and further improved and marketed worldwide by the Oak Ridge company, ORTEC.
