Study on the increase of inactive germanium layer in a high-purity germanium detector after a long time operation applying MCNP code

This study aims at finding an explanation for the decrease in the efficiency of an HPGe detector and evaluating a change in the detector inactive germanium layer during its operation. Monte Carlo calculations using the MCNP4C2 code were performed to evaluate the detector efficiency for different values of the inactive germanium layer. Comparison of the experimental and calculated data shows that the inactive germanium layer of the detector changed its thickness from 0.35 to 1.16 mm after an operating time of 9 years. Measurements for determining the reduction of the detector efficiency were carried out two times, one after 3 years and another after 9 years of operation. Experimental result shows that the detector efficiency was reduced about 8% in this period. The increase of inactive germanium layer can be considered as the main reason for explaining the reduction of detector efficiency of about 13% at the., energies from 200 to 1800keV during 9 years of detector operation, in which 5% for the 3 first years and 8% for the 6 last years. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.