MODERN RADIATION DETECTION

The physics of radiation detection has barely changed in a generation - yet the instruments built on it have been transformed.
Silicon photomultipliers have displaced vacuum tubes, new scintillator crystals reach resolutions once out of reach, room-temperature semiconductor detectors are now routine, a global helium-3 shortage reshaped neutron detection, and signal processing has become almost entirely digital. Anyone who learned from older references faces a widening gap between the classic foundations and the equipment actually in use - with no single, rigorous, current account that connects the two.
This comprehensive guide closes that gap. It keeps the durable physics - energy loss in matter, the statistics of counting, and the operating principles of every major detector - and rebuilds the modern technology around it, developing each result from first principles and showing the full working of every derivation and worked example.
Inside, you will:

• Understand how gas-filled, scintillation, and semiconductor detectors work, from charge creation to final spectrum
• Compare detector families by energy resolution, efficiency, timing, and dead time
• Explore modern photodetection, including silicon photomultipliers and imaging arrays
• Separate neutrons from gamma rays and follow neutron detection beyond the helium-3 shortage
• Work through the digital signal chain, from preamplifiers and pulse shaping to data acquisition
• Reduce background with shielding and low-level counting, and connect each method to nuclear, medical-imaging, and security work