Introduction: Measurements of polonium content in solids are usually performed by dissolving the material and preparing a thin sample which can be measured with one of the available instruments. A measurement of the radiation emerging from the thick sample should be sufficient to evaluate the polonium content. For this reason a calculation has been performed and the results have been compared with those obtained by the thin sample method. Obviously this proposed method using thick samples would be faster.

Technical report describing development of the Clinton alpha amplifier. The circuit for the Clinton alpha amplifier which is used with an Offner scaler is shown attached to the report. It consists of a pre-amplifier mounted in a cylindrical alpha chamber, followed by a three state amplifier and a pulse height selector in a separate cabinet. Pulses are fed from the pulse height selector in the amplifier to the input tube of the Offner scaler. Through the third stage of the amplifier, this circuit is exactly the same as the California circuit now used by the chemical section for alpha counting. A type 961 Offner scaler was used for these tests. None of the latest Offner scalers type961A, were available to us when the tests were made. Method of testing is given, results are tabulated, computations are made, and eight graphs are given. it appears that the Clinton amplifiers used with a Offner scaler will give substantially the same performance as that given by the California circuit.