Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
...the “daughter” nucleus is sometimes produced in an excited state. The subsequent relaxation of the daughter nucleus to a lower-energy state results in the emission of a gamma-ray photon. Gamma-ray spectroscopy, involving the precise measurement of gamma-ray photon energies emitted by different nuclei, can establish nuclear energy-level structures and allows for the identification of...
Semiconductor detectors also can be used in gamma-ray spectroscopy. In this case, however, it is advantageous to choose germanium rather than silicon as the detector material. With an atomic number of 32, germanium has a much higher photoelectric cross section than silicon (atomic number, Z, of 14), as the probability of photoelectron absorption varies approximately as...
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