This International Standard applies to containers of liquid, solid or gaseous samples for use with cooled germanium detectors in quantitative gamma-ray measurements. The container volumes range from 50 cm to 3 000 cm.
The purpose of this standard is to specify the volume, the dimensions and the physical characteristics of the containers used in routine gamma-ray spectrometry of liquid, solid, or gaseous samples.
This standard combined with IEC 60937 and IEC 60973 defines a limited number of source-detector geometries which are useful in inter-laboratory comparisons, particularly in the field of radiological protection.
The use of uniform sample containers will facilitate the reproducibility of counting and the determination of efficiency curves in addition to making such efficiency curves more universally useful from laboratory to laboratory.
Reproducibility of the defined geometries should be ensured by suitable measures (use of centering devices, for example) that are not part of the present standard.
This standard is particularly applicable to semiconductor gamma-ray detectors but can also be used with scintillation detectors.