A semi-empirical relation which can be used to determine the total attenuation cross sections of samples containing H, C, N and O in the energy range 145–1332 keV has been derived based on the total attenuation cross sections of several sugars, amino acids and fatty acids. The cross sections have been measured by performing transmission experiments in a narrow beam good geometry set-up by employing a high-resolution hyperpure germanium detector at seven energies of biological importance such as 145.4 keV, 279.2 keV, 514 keV, 661.6 keV, 1115.5 keV, 1173.2 keV and 1332.1 keV. The semi-empirical relation can reproduce the experimental values within 1–2%. The total attenuation cross sections of five elements carbon, aluminium, titanium, copper and zirconium measured in the same experimental set-up at the energies mentioned above have been used in a new matrix method to evaluate the effective atomic numbers and the effective electron densities of samples such as cholesterol, fatty acids, sugars and amino acids containing H, C, N and O atoms from their effective atomic cross sections. The effective atomic cross sections are the total attenuation cross sections divided by the total number of atoms of all types in a particular sample. Further, a quantity called the effective atomic weight was defined as the ratio of the molecular weight of a sample to the total number of atoms of all types in it. The variation of the effective atomic number was systematically studied with respect to the effective atomic weight and a new semi-empirical relation for Zeff has been evolved. It is felt that this relation can be very useful to determine the effective atomic number of any sample having H, C, N and O atoms in the energy range 145–1332 keV irrespective of its chemical structure.

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We report here a simple Compton scattering experiment which may be carried out in graduate and undergraduate laboratories to determine the rest mass energy of the electron. In the present experiment, we have measured the energies of the Compton scattered gamma rays with a NaI(Tl) gamma ray spectrometer coupled to a 1 K multichannel analyzer at five scattering angles of θ = 30 • , 50 • , 60 • , 70 • and 80 • using a 137 Cs radioactive gamma source and a suitable aluminum absorber. The rest mass energy of the electron is determined as the reciprocal of the slope of the plot of parameter S versus (1 − cos θ ). The obtained value is found to agree with the standard value.

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