The recent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan has revived interest in radiation meters. Elektor has published several circuits for such devices based on Geiger counter tubes in the past. Unfortunately, these tubes are expensive and have become difficult to find since Fukushima.

 

A clever designer at Elektor found an alternative solution by exploiting a cheap photodiode as a radiation detector. A working prototype was quickly built and tested by a nuclear physics lab in Belgium. This lead to several new insights that allowed the cheapo instrument to be improved greatly. The new ‘Improved Radiation Meter’ encountered besides alpha, beta and gamma particles a lot of success.

 

This webinar covers the design history and ins and outs of the Improved Radiation Meter as published in Elektor’s November 2011 edition. This low-cost and do-it-yourself instrument is able to detect different types of radiation like alpha, beta and gamma using ‘sensors’ you never thought of as suitable for this kind of application. You can look forward to a lively and highly topical webinar on a guaranteed ‘experimentalicious’ circuit!

Participation in this webinar is completely free! All you need to do is register via the link below.
 
The making of the Improved Radiation Meter
Date: Thursday 16 February 2012
Time: 15:00 GMT (16:00 CET)
Presenter: Thijs Beckers (Elektor)
Language: English